Milestone, ExxonMobil Advance Texas CCS Permits Under RRC

The Railroad Commission of Texas has opened public comment on draft Class VI permits for two separate carbon storage projects, Milestone Carbon's South Midland facility and ExxonMobil's Rose CCS project in Jefferson County. Both notices confirm Texas is actively using its new federal primacy authority to move carbon storage applications through the pipeline.

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What do these two draft permits actually cover?

Both notices represent applications the RRC is now processing directly under its Class VI primacy authority. Milestone Carbon Midland CCS Hub is seeking approval for one injection well near Midkiff in Upton County. ExxonMobil Low Carbon Solutions Onshore Storage is seeking approval for three injection wells near Fannett in Jefferson County, southwest of Beaumont.

Each project has cleared the RRC's technical review stage, the same step the state highlighted when it first took over Class VI permitting from the EPA. That means staff have already evaluated the geologic modeling, well construction plans, and financial assurance documents before opening the public comment window. A public comment period, followed by RRC review, comes next before any final decision.

Neither project has final approval yet. Both remain open to public comment, which is the step directly before a final permit decision or, if protested, a hearing before RRC hearing examiners.

How does Milestone Carbon's South Midland project work?

Milestone Carbon plans to inject CO2 roughly 12,200 to 13,849 feet below ground through a single well called Midland CCS #2. The injection zone sits in the Siluro-Devonian and Ellenburger formations, more than two miles below the deepest source of drinking water in that location.

The CO2 will come from nearby oil and gas processing sites, power plants, and cement plants close to the Midland CCS Hub. Once captured, the gas is compressed into a supercritical fluid before being sent underground. Milestone Carbon will monitor the site through the entire 12-year injection period, plus 50 years afterward, unless the RRC approves an earlier closure.

This single-well structure makes South Midland a smaller-scale project compared to multi-well Gulf Coast storage hubs, but it extends Texas CCS activity west into the Permian Basin region rather than concentrating it along the coast.

How is ExxonMobil's Rose CCS project structured differently?

ExxonMobil's Rose CCS draft permit covers three wells rather than one, each targeting the Fleming and Upper Frio sand formations at depths between roughly 3,400 and 7,525 feet. Three deeper Upper Frio reservoirs sit below a 400-foot Anahuac Shale seal, while four shallower Fleming zones are covered by a separate 500-foot confining layer.

The project's scale is substantially larger. ExxonMobil expects to inject about 4 million metric tons of CO2 annually across the three wells, drawing from several large industrial emitters near the Jefferson County site. Over the full 13-year injection period, that adds up to 53 million metric tons stored underground.

Project Detail	Milestone South Midland	ExxonMobil Rose CCS
Permit Number	57099	57803
County	Upton	Jefferson
Number of Wells	1	3
Annual Injection Rate	1 million metric tons	4 million metric tons
Total Injection Period	12 years	13 years
Cumulative Storage	11.9 million metric tons	53 million metric tons

Why does timing matter for Texas CCS right now?

These two draft notices are moving because Texas now controls the process from start to finish. Before primacy, Class VI wells needed federal EPA review that often stretched past two years. Under RRC oversight, similar reviews are expected to move considerably faster, following the pattern of other primacy states like North Dakota and Wyoming.

That authority is already showing up in the numbers. The Railroad Commission of Texas reports 18 Class VI applications received statewide, with more expected, a jump from the backlog described when Texas first secured federal primacy approval. Reaching the draft permit stage for both the Permian Basin sequestration project in Upton County and a Gulf Coast carbon capture hub in Jefferson County within the same window shows the RRC working across multiple regions of the state at once, not just the coastal corridor.

That regulatory certainty matters for financing. Developers weighing a 45Q tax credit structure alongside project timelines can now plan around a state agency instead of a federal backlog. It also puts more pressure on the industrial CO2 source pipeline feeding these wells, since storage capacity is only useful once emitters are actually under contract to send captured carbon there.

>> RELATED: Three States Just Took Control of CCS Permitting

For context, Texas is not the only state pursuing primacy for underground injection wells. Louisiana, North Dakota, Wyoming, West Virginia, and Arizona all hold similar authority, and several more states are in earlier stages of the process. What sets Texas apart is the volume of applications already stacked up, a direct result of the state accepting applications and fees years before primacy was finalized.

Both Milestone and ExxonMobil now sit in a similar spot. Draft permit issued, comment period open, final decision still ahead. If either draws a formal protest, the next stop is a hearing before RRC examiners rather than a straight administrative approval. That happened with ExxonMobil's earlier EPA-era Rose CCS wells, so a protest on this new state filing wouldn't be unusual.

Public comments on the underground CO2 storage applications can be submitted directly through the RRC's online comment form, and the agency has committed to responding to significant comments before issuing a final permit decision on either project.

Two projects, two regions of Texas, one regulator now running the whole show. That is the real story behind these draft notices, and it is worth watching how fast the RRC turns draft into final now that the federal middleman is out of the picture.

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