KENTZEL STATE 42 W101BO OIL MT BATTERY

Kentzel State 42 W101BO Oil MT Battery is a single-facility tank battery tied to the Kentzel State 42 oil and gas lease complex in Loving County, Texas. Mewbourne Oil Company operates the site within the Permian Basin's Delaware sub-basin [source: https://www.shalexp.com/texas/loving-county/kentzel-state-42/027732]. EPA ECHO indexes the battery under facility identifier 110071498364. The record shows zero formal violations in the trailing 24 months, zero active federal permits in the ECHO exporter snapshot, and an environmental justice index average of 0.0 — a figure that tracks directly with Loving County's sparse rural population rather than any emissions assessment [source: https://echo.epa.gov/files/echodownloads/echo_exporter.zip].

A derived penalty figure of $2,200,000 over 24 months appears in the ECHO-derived dataset. That number demands immediate context. The exporter's derivation methodology prorates a five-year total to a 24-month window, and the underlying violation count for this battery is zero, which means the dollar figure originates from an allocation formula rather than any adjudicated penalty against this specific site [source: https://echo.epa.gov/files/echodownloads/echo_exporter.zip]. Analysts should treat it accordingly.

The lease complex has produced 3,691,252 barrels of oil and 17,395,830 MCF of gas between July 2016 and January 2026 across 14 wells. December 2025 alone contributed 15,055 BBLs of oil and 75,636 MCF of gas [source: https://www.shalexp.com/texas/loving-county/kentzel-state-42/027732]. Mewbourne Oil Company is privately held and files no SEC disclosures. No 10-K or 10-Q exists for cross-reference, which removes a standard audit surface for any sustainability claims the operator might otherwise make. Adjacent infrastructure includes the Kentzel 42 State SWD salt water disposal lease #046938 and multiple gas leases under the same operator [source: https://www.texas-drilling.com/loving-county/leases/kentzel-42-state-swd/046938].

The EPA ECHO snapshot dated 2026-05-04 shows the battery with zero quarters of non-compliance across the 24-month review window and zero active federal permits logged in the exporter file [source: https://echo.epa.gov/files/echodownloads/echo_exporter.zip]. That absence of federal permits is not anomalous. In the oil and gas upstream segment under NAICS 211111, tank batteries typically fall under Clean Air Act Subpart OOOOa/OOOOb for storage vessel VOC controls, RCRA for produced-water and tank-bottom sludge handling, and state-administered Clean Water Act SPCC requirements. A site regulated primarily at the Texas Railroad Commission and TCEQ level rather than through direct EPA-administered permits will routinely show no federal permit entries in ECHO.

The 24-month chronology is clean. No ECHO-recorded formal enforcement events, informal actions, or self-reported exceedances are tied to facility ID 110071498364 [source: https://echo.epa.gov/files/echodownloads/echo_exporter.zip]. State-level lease activity on the broader Kentzel State 42 footprint continued through January 2026, with production volumes holding in the mid-tens-of-thousands of barrels monthly [source: https://www.shalexp.com/texas/loving-county/kentzel-state-42/027732]. On April 20, 2026, the Texas Tribune reported that low-producing wells in Texas create deferred plugging risk under Railroad Commission rules — a category-level concern applicable to any operator holding marginal wells in the Permian. That reporting does not name this facility [source: https://texastribune.org/2026/04/20/texas-oil-wells-low-producing-railroad-commission-pollution].

The $2,200,000 figure in the ECHO-derived penalty field warrants specific treatment. The ECHO exporter derivation formula prorates five-year penalty totals to a 24-month window using the expression penalty_24mo = total_5yr × 24/60. Combined with a violation count of zero across the same window, the dollar amount reflects historical five-year federal penalty associations prorated onto this facility record — not a recent adjudicated fine [source: https://echo.epa.gov/files/echodownloads/echo_exporter.zip]. For comparison, Indiana Department of Environmental Management agreed order case 2017-24247-A, entered against Citation Oil & Gas Corp. d/b/a Bozeman–Maier Central Tank Battery, illustrates the category of state-level agreed-order enforcement that tank batteries commonly face for release and recordkeeping issues. That case concerns a different operator in a different state and is not attributable to this Texas site [source: https://www.in.gov/idem/oe/cause/AO/24247-A.htm]. No NGO complaint, citizen suit, or CourtListener docket naming this specific battery surfaced in the research bundle.

No formal EPA enforcement actions against facility ID 110071498364 are recorded in the ECHO exporter for the 24-month window ending 2026-05-04. Violation counts under CWA, CAA, and RCRA programs are each reported as zero [source: https://echo.epa.gov/files/echodownloads/echo_exporter.zip]. The single monetary data point associated with the record is the derived $2,200,000 penalty figure. The exporter documentation explicitly flags that number as a 24-month allocation of a five-year total rather than a discrete penalty event. Absent a matching violation entry, it should be read as a residual dataset artifact pending primary-source confirmation against EPA ICIS-FE&C case-level records [source: https://echo.epa.gov/files/echodownloads/echo_exporter.zip].

No Texas Railroad Commission or TCEQ enforcement order naming this battery surfaced in Brave SERP state-violation queries. No PACER or CourtListener docket against Mewbourne Oil Company tied to this lease appeared in the Exa neural search [source: https://www.texas-drilling.com/loving-county/leases/kentzel-42-state-swd/046938]. The only agreed-order document in the research bundle — Indiana cause 2017-24247-A — concerns a different operator and a different state entirely. It is not attributable to this facility [source: https://www.in.gov/idem/oe/cause/AO/24247-A.htm].

Kentzel State 42 W101BO Oil MT Battery (Loving County, TX; EPA facility ID 110071498364): the ECHO record shows zero 24-month violations, zero active federal permits, and an EJ index of 0.0 [source: https://echo.epa.gov/files/echodownloads/echo_exporter.zip]. The battery sits within a 14-well lease property. That property produced 3,691,252 BBLs of oil and 17,395,830 MCF of gas from July 2016 through January 2026 under operator Mewbourne Oil Company [source: https://www.shalexp.com/texas/loving-county/kentzel-state-42/027732]. Associated infrastructure on the same lease footprint includes the Kentzel 42 State SWD lease #046938, a salt water disposal well that receives produced water from the oil-production system [source: https://www.texas-drilling.com/loving-county/leases/kentzel-42-state-swd/046938]. Adjacent Mewbourne-operated leases identified in state records include Kentzel State 42 SL lease #281033 and multiple gas leases numbered 285311, 285313, 288062, 288063, 291152, 291153, 293665, 293666, 293695, and 293697 [source: https://www.texas-drilling.com/loving-county/leases/kentzel-state-42-sl/281033]. Because only one facility appears in the EPA dataset for this company slug, a top-five facility ranking cannot be constructed. The remaining four slots are not populated in the source data [source: https://echo.epa.gov/files/echodownloads/echo_exporter.zip].

The ECHO record lists no top pollutants for facility ID 110071498364, consistent with the zero-violation status and the absence of TRI or NEI emission lines tied to this specific battery in the exporter file [source: https://echo.epa.gov/files/echodownloads/echo_exporter.zip]. That blank field does not describe the physical reality of a working tank battery. Permian Basin crude stock tanks generate VOC emissions — benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene — through flash gas and working and breathing losses. Methane and hydrogen sulfide accompany those losses as co-emitted compounds at facilities of this type.

The Environmental Integrity Project's April 2021 benzene monitoring report documents benzene as a marker pollutant for refining and upstream handling infrastructure, with exposure pathways via inhalation and secondary groundwater contact near produced-water handling sites [source: https://environmentalintegrity.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Benzene-Report-embargoed-for-4.29.21-1.pdf]. Produced water routed to adjacent salt water disposal leases such as Kentzel 42 State SWD lease #046938 carries chloride loads, hydrocarbon residue, and naturally occurring radioactive material constituents. The Texas Tribune's April 20, 2026 reporting adds another dimension: low-producing and near-inactive wells in Texas generate ongoing pollution exposure for adjacent landowners when plugging is deferred, because surface casings and wellbore integrity degrade over time [source: https://texastribune.org/2026/04/20/texas-oil-wells-low-producing-railroad-commission-pollution]. The EJ index of 0.0 reflects low population density in Loving County. It does not indicate an absence of emissions pathways at the facility level [source: https://echo.epa.gov/files/echodownloads/echo_exporter.zip].

Within the upstream-and-midstream NAICS 211xxx peer set drawn from the ECHO exporter, Kentzel State 42 W101BO Oil MT Battery's derived $2.2 million 24-month penalty allocation sits an order of magnitude below the top three peers. Greka Bell Compressor Plant carries a $26.16 million derived figure with zero violations. Red Hills Gas Processing Plant shows $19.13 million against 8 violation quarters, and HP Gas Pad shows $16.13 million against the same 8-quarter count [source: https://echo.epa.gov/files/echodownloads/echo_exporter.zip]. Kentzel's zero-violation count aligns with Greka Bell but diverges sharply from Red Hills and HP Gas Pad. The more important structural distinction is this: the peer penalty totals for Red Hills and HP Gas Pad correspond to actual recorded non-compliance quarters, while Kentzel's derived figure has no matching violation entry to anchor it. The two types of numbers are not directly comparable, and treating them as equivalent would misread the dataset.

No SEC Item 1A disclosure exists for Mewbourne Oil Company or Kentzel State 42 W101BO Oil MT Battery because the operator is privately held and files no 10-K. The company CIK field is N/A in the input record. Forward-looking environmental risk for this site must therefore be inferred from category-level reporting. The Texas Tribune reported on April 20, 2026 that Texas Railroad Commission rules allow operators to defer plugging of low-producing wells for extended periods, exposing landowners to emissions and surface-release risk and creating contingent plugging-and-abandonment liability for operators as wells decline [source: https://texastribune.org/2026/04/20/texas-oil-wells-low-producing-railroad-commission-pollution]. Applied to the Kentzel State 42 lease — in production since July 2016 with 14 wells currently active — this is a long-horizon end-of-life-asset risk rather than an immediate enforcement exposure [source: https://www.shalexp.com/texas/loving-county/kentzel-state-42/027732]. Plugging-and-abandonment costs accumulate quietly. They become material only when production economics no longer support continued operation, at which point the liability has already been building for years.