How should a Monahans service company set up its insurance for Ward County work?

Monahans is in the northeast corner of Ward County at the intersection of Interstate 20 and Farm Road 18. It became the county seat in 1938, replacing Barstow. The Handbook of Texas puts it 36 miles southwest of Odessa.

The Pecos River runs through the south and west of the county, and separates Ward from Reeves County.

• RRC oil and gas district: District 08, handled from the Midland district office.
• TxDOT district: Odessa.

Ward County does not touch New Mexico. Winkler and Loving counties sit between it and the state line. If your crews still cross over, the New Mexico rules on the Permian Basin guide apply.

Ward County has been producing for a long time. The Handbook of Texas says the Hendrick oilfield opened in 1926 and drove the town's growth, and oil was found at Grandfalls in 1929. County crude production climbed to more than 28,245,000 barrels in 1965, and by January 1, 1991, the county had produced 668,715,000 barrels since 1928.

Older fields mean a different mix of work than a new shale pad: rod and tubing jobs, workovers, lease maintenance, flowline repair and plugging. They also mean enhanced recovery. A 2018 Southern Methodist University radar study found ground uplift of more than an inch near CO2 injection wells southwest of Monahans.

What that work does to your insurance:

• Workover and well servicing puts your crews and rigs inside the well. Look at how the MSA allocates loss of hole and damage to the reservoir. See well servicing insurance.
• Care, custody and control. Pulling and running the operator's tubing and rods means working on property that is not yours. Your GL may exclude damage to it. See the care, custody and control exclusion.
• Pollution. Old flowlines and tanks leak. A release during your work can land on you depending on the MSA. See oilfield pollution liability.

Monahans sits on I-20 between two of the RRC's seismic response areas, each of which limits saltwater disposal.

To the east, Gardendale. The RRC describes it as running from northeast Ector County to southwest Martin County. The RRC suspended all deep disposal permits there effective December 31, 2021, affecting 33 deep disposal wells. After a magnitude 5.4 earthquake on December 16, 2022, it enlarged the area by about 100 square miles and asked active shallow wells not to exceed 10,000 barrels a day. Under the 2023 operator plan, all deep disposal in the area "will remain shut in."

To the west, Northern Culberson-Reeves. Expanded north to the New Mexico border in December 2022, with deep disposal targets cut to 162,000 barrels a day by June 30, 2023, and permits suspended for 23 deep disposal wells effective January 12, 2024.

For a Monahans water hauler, disposal limits on both sides can affect where loads go and how far trucks run. Keep your auto underwriter current on radius and mileage, keep your pollution coverage current on disposal destinations, and keep your RRC waste hauler permit renewed. See water hauling insurance and what is an RRC waste hauler permit.

Moving workover rigs, rig-up trucks and tank trailers out of Monahans usually means state highways, and oversize or overweight moves need a permit.

Texas oversize/overweight permits are issued by the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles (TxDMV) through its TxPROS system, not by TxDOT. TxDOT maintains the roads; Ward County is in its Odessa District.

TxDMV's legal limits without a permit include 8 feet 6 inches wide, 14 feet high and 80,000 pounds gross. TxDMV lists several permit types built for oilfield equipment:

• Well Servicing Unit (Annual) for legal size and weight units, which requires a Texas "P" plate.
• Unladen Lift Equipment Motor Vehicle and Well Service Unit Mileage for fixed-load machinery used to drill, service or clean oil wells.
• Fracking Trailer for a semitrailer containing a tank and pump unit.
• Rig-Up Truck for a truck equipped with a winch and gin poles.

Insurance questions to settle: is each permitted unit on your auto schedule, does your umbrella list auto as underlying, and does your equipment floater cover the unit while in transit? See oilfield auto insurance and MCS-90 and oilfield equipment insurance.

Send us the insurance exhibit and indemnity sections of your MSAs, your current certificates, and any compliance rejection notice. For Ward County work, we look at these first: