The Operation: How Cameras in Helicopters Caught What ConocoPhillips Didn’t Fix

The EPA did not discover these violations through a tipoff, a whistleblower, or a self-reported compliance failure. The agency contracted helicopter flights over the Permian Basin in Texas, equipped with Optical Gas Imaging technology, because standard ground inspections were not catching what was actually happening at these facilities.

• The EPA’s helicopter flyover campaign ran from August 25 to September 12, 2020. The flights covering ConocoPhillips’ facilities were conducted specifically between August 25 and September 3, 2020. OGI cameras detect hydrocarbon and VOC gas clouds that are completely invisible to the human eye.
• Eight ConocoPhillips facilities in the Texas Permian Basin were captured on video during those flights. Every single facility in the footage had a documented emissions problem. The camera did not produce a single clean result across the entire group.
• The EPA sent ConocoPhillips the OGI video captures on December 11, 2020, roughly three and a half months after the flights. EPA asked the company to verify ownership, provide current permit information and inspection records, and take corrective action.
• ConocoPhillips responded on January 8, 2021, stating that corrective actions had been completed at some of the facilities. The word “some” is doing significant work in that sentence: the company’s own response left open the question of whether all violations had been remedied.
• The EPA formally issued a Notice of Violation and Opportunity to Confer on July 20, 2021, nearly eleven months after the flyovers documented the problems. A settlement conference followed on August 11, 2022. The final Consent Agreement and Final Order were not signed until August 20-21, 2024: four years after the cameras first caught the leaks.

Eight Facilities. Zero Clean Results. What the Cameras Found.

The OGI footage identified a specific violation category at each facility. The document names all eight sites, their permit types, the dates they were overflown, and what the camera operator observed. This is the complete record:

• Battleship Central Facility (RN110303518): Flown on August 26, 2020. Camera observed compressor vent emissions. Operating under a Non-Rule Standard Permit.
• Texas 6 WF1 (RN108983818): Flown on August 26, 2020. Camera observed tank hatch emissions. Vapors rising from an open or leaking tank hatch, a component that permits require to remain closed except during specific maintenance operations. Operating under a Non-Rule Standard Permit.
• Ramsey WC 22-1H Battery (RN107037558): Flown on August 25, 2020. Camera observed an unlit flare. This flare was required to maintain a continuously burning pilot flame at all times when waste gas streams are present. It had no flame. Operating under a Permit by Rule.
• Ramsey 10-1H Battery (RN107231219): Flown on September 3, 2020. Camera observed an unlit flare. A second ConocoPhillips facility with a flare required to be continuously burning, confirmed dark. Operating under a Permit by Rule.
• TB-Cherry Pie-57-T1-20-A (RN109160846): Flown on August 26, 2020. Camera observed an unlit flare. A third confirmed dark flare on the same day. Operating under a Non-Rule Standard Permit.
• El Jefe Tank Battery (RN107824997): Flown on August 26, 2020. Camera observed an unlit flare. A fourth confirmed dark flare captured on August 26, 2020. Operating under a Non-Rule Standard Permit.
• Rustler Hills 7-1H and 2H Battery (RN107833733): Flown on August 26, 2020. Camera observed pressure relief valve and tank hatch emissions. Multiple pathways for uncontrolled VOC release at a single site. Operating under a Permit by Rule.
• North Water Transfer Station (RN108723040): Flown on August 26, 2020. Camera observed gunbarrel tank hatch emissions, specifically from a gunbarrel separator tank, a piece of equipment used to separate oil, gas, and water at the surface. Operating under a Permit by Rule.

Four separate ConocoPhillips flares, required by law to burn continuously when waste gas is present, were confirmed unlit on a single day: August 26, 2020. The waste gas those flares were supposed to combust had nowhere to go but into the air.

Ten Violations, One Company: What the Law Required and What ConocoPhillips Did Instead

The EPA charged ConocoPhillips with ten separate categories of legal violations arising from the OGI footage. These are the rules that existed, the specific obligations ConocoPhillips agreed to when it received its permits, and the ways those obligations were broken.

Equipment Maintenance and Operations Failures

• Failure to maintain emissions control equipment in good condition (30 Tex. Admin. Code § 106.4(c)): Texas law requires that all emissions control equipment be maintained in good condition and operated properly. ConocoPhillips’ permits incorporated this requirement. The OGI footage documented equipment in observable failure states at multiple facilities.
• Failure to operate consistent with certified registrations (30 Tex. Admin. Code § 106.6(b)): When ConocoPhillips applied for its permits, it submitted certified representations about how it would construct and operate the facilities. Those representations became binding permit conditions. The company’s actual operations deviated from those commitments.
• Varying from certified registrations without prior revision (30 Tex. Admin. Code § 106.6(c)): Texas law prohibits changing operations in ways that alter the character of emissions or increase discharges without first revising the certified registration. ConocoPhillips made no such revision and changed its operations anyway.
• General failure to maintain all facilities in good working order (TCEQ Non-Rule Standard Permit (e)(1)): The Non-Rule Standard Permit for Oil and Gas Facilities requires that all facilities with potential to emit air contaminants be maintained in good working order and operated properly during all facility operations. Multiple facilities failed this standard simultaneously.

Flare Violations: The Dark Fires

• Failure to meet flare requirements under § 106.492 (30 Tex. Admin. Code § 106.352(l)(1)): Any oil and gas facility operating under the Permit by Rule program is required to comply with the flare standards in § 106.492. The flare standards exist for one primary reason: to prevent unburned waste gas from entering the atmosphere. Four ConocoPhillips facilities failed this requirement.
• No continuously burning pilot or automatic ignition at flares (30 Tex. Admin. Code § 106.492(l)(B)): The regulation is specific: flares must be equipped with a continuously burning pilot or other automatic ignition system that ensures gas ignition at all times. Four ConocoPhillips flares had no flame. Waste gas was present and going unburned directly to atmosphere.
• Flares not lit when gas streams present (TCEQ Non-Rule Standard Permit (e)(11)(A) and (E)): The Non-Rule Standard Permit states in plain language that “flares must be lit at all times when gas streams are present.” It also requires pilot flame monitoring to meet federal specifications under 40 C.F.R. § 60.18. Both requirements were violated at multiple sites.
• Inadequate combustion at flares (TCEQ Non-Rule Standard Permit (e)(11)(B)): Beyond simply being lit, flares must achieve adequate combustion. Inadequate combustion means hydrocarbons pass through the flare system and enter the atmosphere partially or fully unburned, defeating the purpose of the control device entirely.

Tank and VOC Capture Failures

• Failure to capture and route tank emissions to a control device (TCEQ Non-Rule Standard Permit (e)(5)): Any combination of equipment with an uncontrolled potential to emit 25 tons per year or more of VOCs must capture emissions and route them to a control device achieving at least 95% design control efficiency. ConocoPhillips’ facilities were not meeting this requirement, as confirmed by the visible vapor plumes on camera.
• Improper seals, gaskets, and open tank hatches (TCEQ Non-Rule Standard Permit (e)(6)): All seals and gaskets in VOC or hydrogen sulfide service must be installed, checked, and properly maintained to prevent leaking. Tank hatches must remain closed except during sampling, gauging, loading, unloading, or planned maintenance. Multiple facilities had visible emissions from these exact pathways: open or leaking hatches and failed seals at Rustler Hills, Texas 6 WF1, and North Water Transfer Station.

The Non-Financial Ledger

There is no line in the Consent Agreement for the people who live downwind. There is no dollar figure assigned to the years a family in the Permian Basin spends breathing air from a production field where flares sat dark and tank hatches sat open. There is no settlement check written to the child whose asthma got worse, whose doctor appointments pile up, whose parents can’t prove which invisible gas from which invisible leak made things this way. The document does not name them. It was not written for them.

Volatile Organic Compounds are not an abstraction. They form ground-level ozone when they react with sunlight and other pollutants. Ground-level ozone damages the lungs. It makes existing respiratory conditions worse. It is particularly harmful to children, the elderly, and anyone who works outdoors. The Permian Basin is not a place where people go home at the end of the shift and leave the air behind. People live there. They drink water from the ground underneath those facilities. They grow up there. Their children go to school a few miles from tank batteries that EPA cameras filmed venting petroleum vapor into open air.

The four unlit flares documented on August 26, 2020, are not a regulatory abstraction either. A flare that is lit turns waste hydrocarbons into carbon dioxide and water, which is imperfect but controlled. A flare that is dark sends those same hydrocarbons into the atmosphere entirely unprocessed: methane, benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylene. Benzene is a known human carcinogen. There is no safe level of benzene exposure. The document does not tell you what compounds were in the waste gas streams that those four dark flares were supposed to burn. The document does not tell you how long those flares had been dark before the helicopter flew over. It tells you only that they were dark when the camera looked.

The people most likely to carry the health cost of what happened at these eight Permian Basin facilities are not shareholders. They are the Latino and lower-income families who make up a significant share of the Permian Basin’s workforce and community population, people who moved there for the oil economy, people who have few options to move away from it. Environmental enforcement research consistently shows that communities of color and low-income communities face disproportionate exposure to industrial air pollution. ConocoPhillips’ permit violations did not occur in a vacuum. They occurred in someone’s neighborhood.

And then there is the thing the settlement cannot touch: the four years it took. Four years from the date the cameras filmed those dark flares to the date a judge signed the Final Order. Whatever those facilities were releasing during those four years, whatever new violations may have been occurring at the same sites or nearby sites, fell outside the scope of this particular proceeding. The settlement resolves only the specific violations alleged in Sections D and E of the Consent Agreement, and nothing else. The community got $490,000 directed to the U.S. Treasury. Not to them. To the Treasury.

Legal Receipts: What the Documents Actually Say

The following are direct, verbatim quotes from the EPA Consent Agreement and Final Order, Docket No. CAA-06-2024-3354. Nothing has been paraphrased or invented.

“EPA contracted helicopter flyovers of the Permian Basin between August 25, 2020, and September 12, 2020 to assess energy extraction facility emissions using Optical Gas Imaging (‘OGI’) technology.” Consent Agreement, Paragraph 23 — Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law

• This confirms that standard ground inspection was not the mechanism that caught these violations. The EPA had to deploy specialized aerial surveillance technology to detect emissions that would otherwise be invisible. The existence of this program implies that OGI flyovers routinely find problems that are not being self-reported or caught by routine ground inspection.

“On December 11, 2020, EPA sent Respondent OGI video captures showing potentially unauthorized hydrocarbon emissions from process equipment and vapor recovery systems at the Facilities. EPA asked Respondent to verify ownership, provide current site-specific permit information and inspection records, and take any necessary corrective action to address unauthorized hydrocarbon emissions at each facility.” Consent Agreement, Paragraph 25

• This establishes that the EPA sent ConocoPhillips video evidence of what the cameras had filmed. The company was not simply sent a list of alleged violations; it was sent the footage. The phrase “potentially unauthorized” reflects cautious legal language, but the follow-up settlement confirms the violations were real.
• The request for “site-specific permit information and inspection records” implies the EPA needed ConocoPhillips to explain whether proper inspections had been conducted. If inspections had been thorough and current, the records would have shown that. The document does not indicate the records demonstrated compliance.

“Respondent violated 30 Tex. Admin. Code § 106.492(l)(B) by failing to equip certain facilities with a continuously burning pilot or automatic ignition system that assures gas ignition.” Consent Agreement, Paragraph 29(e) — Alleged Violations

• This is the direct allegation for the four unlit flares. The regulation does not say flares must be lit most of the time, or lit during business hours, or lit when convenient. It says continuously burning. “Certain facilities” understates what the document itself shows: Ramsey WC, Ramsey 10, Cherry Pie, and El Jefe were all documented with unlit flares. That is four out of eight facilities overflown.

“Respondent neither admits nor denies the specific factual allegations contained in the CAFO.” Consent Agreement, Paragraph 30(b)

• This is standard legal settlement language, but it means exactly what it says. ConocoPhillips waived its right to contest the alleged violations and agreed to pay $490,000, but the company does not go on record as having confirmed that any of the observed violations actually happened. This language protects the company in any future litigation where the settlement might otherwise be used as an admission of liability.
• The company simultaneously “waives any right to contest the alleged violations” (Paragraph 30(g)) while “neither admits nor denies” them. These positions coexist in the legal settlement structure. You can read this as the company saying: “We won’t fight it, but we didn’t do it.”

“Any violation of the included Final Order may result in a civil judicial action for an injunction or civil penalties of up to $121,275 per day of violation, or both, as provided in Section 113(b)(2) of the Act.” Consent Agreement, Paragraph 55

• This is the statutory ceiling for future violations, not what was assessed here. The final penalty assessed was $490,000 total. The document acknowledges that a single day of future violation could theoretically cost more than $121,000, which means the entire penalty for this multi-facility, multi-violation case represents less than five hypothetical days of maximum-rate future penalties. The gap between the theoretical maximum and the actual penalty negotiated is a direct measure of the leverage corporations hold in administrative settlement proceedings.

“Penalties paid pursuant to this CAFO shall not be deductible for purposes of federal taxes.” Consent Agreement, Paragraph 51

• The document contains an explicit prohibition on ConocoPhillips deducting this penalty from its federal taxes. The fact that this clause needs to exist at all tells you something about how routine these penalties are in the oil and gas industry: without this language, a corporation could reduce its actual after-tax cost of the penalty further by writing it off as a business expense.

“Respondent waives any right to contest the alleged violations set forth in Section E of this CAFO.”

What the Permits Promised vs. What the Cameras Found

ConocoPhillips’ air permits were not issued to it; they were granted on the basis of representations it made. The gap between those representations and the OGI footage is the core of every violation in this case.

Societal Impact Mapping: Who Pays the Real Price

Environmental Degradation

The emissions documented in this case were not incidental or minor. Unlit flares and unsealed tanks in active oil and gas production facilities represent continuous, uncontrolled releases of hydrocarbon compounds directly to the atmosphere.

• Volatile Organic Compounds released from uncontrolled tank hatches, failed seals, and unlit flares react with nitrogen oxides in sunlight to produce ground-level ozone, a pollutant that damages vegetation, reduces crop yields, and degrades ecosystems across large geographic areas downwind of emission sources.
• Methane, a primary component of the waste gas streams that unlit flares are supposed to combust, is a potent greenhouse gas with a global warming potential more than 80 times that of carbon dioxide over a 20-year period. Every minute a flare sits dark and unlit, methane enters the atmosphere rather than being combusted to the less potent CO2.
• The Permian Basin sits above the Permian Basin’s Delaware and Midland sub-basins, a region with documented concerns about groundwater contamination from oilfield operations. Spill containment adequacy at these same facilities was specifically flagged in the settlement’s engineering assessment requirements, with the EPA ordering ConocoPhillips to evaluate whether containment systems are sufficient, indicating this was an unresolved concern at the time of the agreement.
• The settlement’s remediation requirements explicitly include assessing whether tank batteries’ vapor control systems can handle “maximum instantaneous vapor emissions, including working, breathing, or flashing losses.” The phrase “breathing losses” refers to routine daily thermal expansion of tanks releasing vapors to atmosphere; the fact that this required engineering review suggests these baseline emissions had not been properly characterized or controlled.

Public Health

Permian Basin communities are not abstract statistics. The people breathing this air live, work, and raise children in one of the most heavily industrialized energy extraction zones in North America.

• Benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene (collectively BTEX compounds) are common components of petroleum gas streams at Permian Basin oil and gas facilities. Benzene is classified as a Group 1 human carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. No safe threshold of benzene exposure exists. Unlit flares and open tank hatches at oil and gas production facilities are known pathways for BTEX exposure in surrounding communities.
• Ground-level ozone produced from VOC emissions is directly linked to increased emergency room visits for asthma, reduced lung function in children, and elevated mortality risk in people with pre-existing cardiovascular or respiratory conditions. The Permian Basin counties where these facilities are located have recorded periods of elevated ozone that exceed EPA health standards.
• The settlement’s requirement that ConocoPhillips evaluate whether “hydrogen sulfide” (H2S) compatible materials are in use at tank systems signals that H2S, a toxic gas with acute effects at very low concentrations, was a relevant concern at these facilities. H2S exposure at even low concentrations causes headaches, nausea, and respiratory irritation. At higher concentrations it is rapidly lethal.
• Agricultural workers and outdoor laborers in the Permian Basin face disproportionate VOC and ozone exposure compared to those in climate-controlled workplaces. These workers, predominantly from Latino communities, have limited regulatory recourse and limited ability to relocate away from facilities where violations occur.

Economic Inequality

The financial structure of this enforcement action reflects a fundamental asymmetry: one of the largest oil companies in the world, one $490,000 penalty, and a community that received nothing directly.

• ConocoPhillips reported revenues of approximately $58.6 billion in 2023. The $490,000 penalty represents approximately 0.0008% of that annual revenue. At that ratio, a worker earning $50,000 a year would face the equivalent of a $0.41 fine for the same category of offense.
• The settlement explicitly states that “penalties paid pursuant to this CAFO shall not be deductible for purposes of federal taxes.” This clause was necessary because without it, ConocoPhillips could have partially offset the penalty’s after-tax cost through business deductions, reducing the effective penalty even further.
• The penalty is paid to the United States Treasury, specifically to “Treasurer, United States of America, EPA Region 6.” None of the $490,000 flows to the communities surrounding these facilities, to a remediation fund for affected residents, or to health monitoring programs for the populations most exposed to the documented emissions.
• ConocoPhillips’ legal team (Baker Botts LLP) is one of the most prominent energy-sector law firms in the United States. The costs of that representation are a business expense for the company. The communities affected by these emissions have no equivalent institutional advocate in an administrative penalty proceeding.
• The economic benefit of noncompliance was formally considered in calculating the penalty per Section 113 of the CAA. The document does not disclose what that calculated economic benefit was, meaning readers cannot determine whether the $490,000 penalty exceeded, equaled, or merely approximated the money ConocoPhillips saved by not maintaining its control equipment properly.

The “Cost of a Life” Metric: What $490,000 Actually Means

Anatomy of the Settlement: What ConocoPhillips Actually Has to Do

The $490,000 penalty is one part of the settlement. The other part is a set of operational requirements ConocoPhillips must meet for one year from the effective date. Understanding the full package reveals both what the EPA demanded and what it did not.

What Now? Who to Contact and How to Push Back

The settlement is signed, but the oversight period is active: ConocoPhillips is required to conduct monthly OGI surveys and report results to the EPA for one year from the effective date of August 21, 2024. That window is your window.

Key Corporate Decision-Makers at ConocoPhillips

The source document identifies Margaret B. Hutson as ConocoPhillips’ internal representative who was served with this enforcement action. The company’s legal representation was Scott Janoe and Harrison Reback of Baker Botts LLP. The EPA’s enforcement officer of record is Jamie Salabogi, EPA Region 6. Additional corporate officers and board members are not named in the source document.

Watchlist: Regulatory Bodies with Jurisdiction

• U.S. EPA Region 6 (Dallas, Texas): The lead agency on this case. EPA Region 6 covers Texas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. Complaints about air quality violations at Permian Basin oil and gas facilities can be submitted to Region 6’s Enforcement and Compliance Assurance Division. Contact: Region 6 public tip line and enforcement intake portal at epa.gov.
• Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ): The state agency that issued the permits ConocoPhillips violated. TCEQ has its own enforcement authority and accepts public complaints about air quality violations. File a complaint at tceq.texas.gov. TCEQ was notified of this action by the EPA under the Clean Air Act’s state notification requirements.
• U.S. Department of Justice, Environment and Natural Resources Division: The DOJ jointly evaluated whether this case should be handled administratively or referred for federal judicial prosecution. They determined administrative settlement was appropriate. If new violations emerge from the monitoring period, DOJ civil judicial action remains available.
• OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration): Workers at these eight Permian Basin facilities were exposed to the same emissions documented by the EPA cameras. OSHA enforces worker safety standards for H2S and VOC exposure at oil and gas facilities. Workers can file confidential complaints at osha.gov.
• Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC): ConocoPhillips is a publicly traded company. Investors and members of the public who believe the company’s environmental liability disclosures are inadequate may file tips with the SEC’s Office of the Whistleblower at sec.gov/whistleblower.

Direct Action and Community Organizing

• Demand the OGI footage: The Consent Agreement states that all OGI video captures and survey logs from the one-year monitoring period must be uploaded to an electronic folder provided by the EPA. These records are federal documents subject to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. File a FOIA request with EPA Region 6 for the OGI survey footage and monthly reports from the post-settlement monitoring period.
• Connect with Permian Basin environmental justice organizations: Groups like Earthworks, the Center for Biological Diversity, and Texas environmental justice coalitions have been documenting Permian Basin emissions for years, including their own OGI camera programs. Their community science data can supplement the official record and apply public pressure during the active monitoring window.
• Attend TCEQ public hearings: The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality holds public hearings on permit applications and renewals. When ConocoPhillips applies for new or revised permits at any of these eight facilities (which the settlement may require), those hearings are an opportunity for public comment on the company’s compliance history, which this enforcement action is now part of the official record.
• Share this enforcement record with local officials: County commissioners, school board members, and local elected officials in Reeves, Culberson, and Loving counties (where Permian Basin operations are concentrated) have authority to request environmental health studies and advocate for stronger monitoring requirements. This EPA document is public record; send it to your local representatives.
• Support mutual aid networks for health-impacted families: If you or a neighbor suspects health impacts from nearby oil and gas operations, organizations like Earthjustice and the Texas Environmental Law Center provide legal assistance and referrals. Community health clinics in the Permian Basin region can document and track health conditions that build the long-term epidemiological record regulators ultimately need to act.