Official documents confirm that an Ineos company has been awarded permits to drill the Texas shale.

The two permits, awarded by the regulator, the Texas Railroad Commission, are reportedly the first applied for in Ineos’s own name in the state.

They are for horizontal wells, both in Fayette county, south east of Austin. They are listed as oil wells and target the Giddings field in the Austin Chalk geological formation. Both are to be drilled to a total depth of more than 10,000 ft.

The company behind the projects is Ineos USA Oil & Gas LLC. It is based in League City in the Greater Houston city area and was incorporated just over a year ago (24 April 2019).

Ineos has petrochemical plants in the Houston area and along the Texas Gulf coast.

The Houston Chronicle reported yesterday that Ineos bought tens of thousands of acres of Austin Chalk leases from a local oil company, Crawford Hughes, in August 2019.

The paper said Ineos planned to do in Texas what it couldn’t do in the UK – horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing.

In the UK, Ineos Shale describes itself as the biggest player in the onshore gas business. It has interests in 1.3m acres of shale gas exploration licence and is the operator of the largest number of shale gas licences.

But so far, the company has planning permission for just two shale gas exploration sites at Marsh Lane in Derbyshire and Harthill in South Yorkshire. No work has been carried out at either. Another application, at Woodsetts, also in South Yorkshire, is awaiting a decision.

• DrillOrDrop invited Ineos to comment on the Houston Chronicle’s report. This article will be updated with any response.