Posted inBusiness, Environment, News, Politics and Government

Oil and gas regulators dial back rules that keep industry from sticking Colorado with bill for orphan wells

Trying to balance a mandate to ensure the state is not stuck with abandoned oil and gas wells against the financial needs of the industry, Colorado regulators have issued a revised plan that has buoyed operators and left environmentalists in despair. Gone from the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission’s initial draft rule for financial […]

Posted inBusiness, Energy, Environment, News, Politics and Government

Nearly half of Colorado’s 52,000 wells produce little or no oil. Who’ll pay to plug them?

Sticking out like a sore thumb in the otherwise bucolic, rolling pastures and fields of hay, sit four rusting oil tanks, “Out of Service” stenciled on their sides, along with a scattering of other weathered and unusable equipment. For the better part of three years, Jon and Susanne Stephens have, without success, been trying to […]

Posted inBusiness, Climate, Energy, Environment, Health, News

“Flaring” at oil and gas wells to be curtailed as Colorado regulators adopt some of nation’s strictest rules

Flaring, the practice of burning off gas from oil and gas wells, will be limited to a handful of state-approved circumstances under the most comprehensive rules in the nation, adopted Thursday by Colorado regulators. “We’ve done a good job for Colorado and the nation,” Jeff Robbins, the chairman of the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation […]