What's the Problem?

In reviewing the latest reported TX State production data, we have flagged an issue for West TX data.  Specifically, we have seen a spike in Scurry County (TX) gas production in September 2025 of ~0.8 Bcf/d. We believe that this is likely spurious, for several reasons:. 

• The county added only one new well in September, yet reported production increased roughly sixfold. The increase is distributed across wells of all ages - including wells 25+ years old - which is inconsistent with organic production growth and instead points to a systemic reporting problem.
• The increase is concentrated in Kinder Morgan-operated wells. Scurry County hosts the SACROC unit, one of the oldest and largest CO2 enhanced oil recovery (EOR) projects in the country. CO2 is injected, recycled, and reinjected in large volumes as part of these operations. We believe the spike reflects CO2 volumes being reported as (or mis-categorized with) natural gas in state filings.
• There is no corresponding increase in oil production, which we would expect if actual hydrocarbon extraction had increased.

What are We Doing?

We always examine the state data prior to moving into our production environment, for just these reasons.  We will also be communicating our concerns to the RRC, though with little hope of action.

If this is not corrected soon, we will take action to accommodate this problem, though we haven't yet determined exactly which of several options we might take.

What Does it Mean for You?

At the end of the day, this doesn't affect much.  We always make a separate judgement of the last good date for our STF and daily production models, and this means those cannot be moved up, though we would not have used data as recently as Sep 2025 anyway.

As usual, reach out to support@synmax.com with any questions.