Colorado’s first comprehensive oil and gas development plan — a new mechanism aimed at better assessing and managing the cumulative impacts of drilling — was approved by state regulators Wednesday, paving the way for more than 200 new wells in Weld County. Kerr-McGee, a subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum Corp., got a greenlight from Colorado Oil […]
Karin McGowan
Posted inBusiness, Energy, Environment, News
Colorado gives oil and gas company 6 more months to clean up its act. If not, KP Kauffman faces nearly $1 million in fines — or worse.
Frustrated, but patient, state oil and gas regulators on Monday gave the troubled KP Kauffman Co. one more, six-month chance to clean up its act or face close to $1 million in fines — or worse. The Denver-based oil and gas operator, which runs 1,200 low-producing wells around the state, is under an agreement to […]
Posted inBusiness, Energy, Environment, Health, News, Politics and Government
Colorado’s largest oil and gas producer wants permission to drill closer than 2,000 feet from homes
The buffer between homes and oil and gas drilling in Colorado is by rule 2,000 feet, except when it isn’t, and a move to drill in the middle of a residential area in Firestone is raising questions about how secure that buffer will be. The state’s biggest operator, Occidental Petroleum, through its Colorado subsidiary Kerr-McGee, […]
Posted inBusiness, Energy, Environment, News, Politics and Government
An oil company that no longer exists faces a $344,000 fine Colorado doesn’t expect to collect. But that’s the point.
Colorado oil and gas regulators have levied a $344,000 fine they don’t expect to collect from a company that no longer exists. It was a legal stratagem for the state to seize a $20,000 bond from the bankrupt, Houston-based Alta Mesa Resources LP for failing to clean-up an abandoned well site in Huerfano County. The […]
Posted inBusiness, Energy, News, Politics and Government
Colorado regulators back 2,000-foot setback for new oil and gas drilling in “paradigm shift”
All homes and schools in Colorado should be protected from new oil and gas drilling by a 2,000-foot buffer or setback – four times the current standard for urban areas, a majority of the members of the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission said. In a session Wednesday to review proposed rule changes on setbacks, […]
Posted inBusiness, Energy, Environment, Health, News, Politics and Government
Fight over Colorado setback rule sets up make-or-break hearing on how close is too close for oil and gas
Colorado regulators have spent more than a year overhauling the state’s oil and gas drilling rules, but on Tuesday they face revising what both industry and environmentalists see as the make-or-break rule: setbacks of oil and gas operations from homes and schools. “Setbacks will determine Gov. Jared Polis’ legacy on oil and gas and whether […]
Posted inBusiness, Coloradans, Energy, Environment, Health, News, Politics and Government
Here’s who Gov. Polis just named to sit on the new, full-time panel regulating Colorado oil and gas
The full-time oil and gas commission that will handle the development of some of the most controversial regulations mandated by the legislature in 2019, was announced Monday by Gov. Jared Polis. The five-member commission, which takes over July 1, will replace the nine-member, volunteer body that has been working for the last year on regulations […]
Posted inColoradans, News, Politics and Government
The toughest position for Gov.-elect Jared Polis to fill is this one
Recommendations about who should run more than a dozen state agencies with thousands of employees and multi-million or billion-dollar budgets will hit the governor-elect’s desk this weekend. A team of committees appointed by Jared Polis has sorted through hundreds of applications to pick the top candidates to manage everything from Colorado’s roads and bridges to […]