"Exxon, Occidental and Diamondback are among those touting efforts to end routine gas flaring, but their flames keep spewing pollution around the world."
"Norma Lopez Cadena tries to keep her granddaughters indoors — out of sight from the 65-foot flare burning excess gas from more than a dozen oil wells.
At night, she says, the flare rattles the house from about 500 feet away and wakes her family. When the wind shifts, it smells like burnt rubber. The flare tormenting Lopez Cadena towers over the quiet West Texas neighborhood of South Ranchito, in the heart of the oil-producing Permian Basin, where it dances in the breeze day after day like an oversized lighter. When the gas flow increases, it swells into a thick yellow and sounds like a blowtorch.
“Nobody wants to live next to that,” she says.
Scenes like this were supposed to become increasingly rare. For more than a decade, oil companies have pledged to eventually eliminate what the industry terms “routine flaring” — burning gas because producers consider it too costly or difficult to capture, sell or reinject underground."
Will Evans and Ben Elgin report for Bloomberg October 5, 2026, in partnership with The Examination.
