Interior Secretary Ken Salazar Monday issued a final secretarial order aimed at ending the conflict between the oil and natural gas industry and potash companies within the 500,000-acre Designated Potash Area (DPA) in Southeast New Mexico.

The order, which follows a draft order issued in July that proposed establishing buffer zones between oil and gas wells and potash mining operations that are designed to provide added protection to the resources (see Daily GPI, July 16). This strategy “will allow us to move beyond years of disagreement and litigation between the energy and potash industries and provides a balanced approach that will strength new Mexico’s economy,” Salazar said.

The final strategy clears the way for increased production in the oil-rich Permian Basin, and will provide more certainty for the development of potash, which is a mined salt that contains potassium and is used in fertilizers in U.S. agriculture.

The DPA contains deposits of both potash and oil and gas on more than 400,000 acres of land, most of which is managed by Interior’s Bureau of Land Management. The DPA currently produces 75% of the potash mined in the United States and is also home to nearly 800 federal oil and gas leases.

The secretarial order also calls for the use of emerging technologies associated with horizontal drilling the production of oil and natural gas to minimize impacts and surface disruption, Interior said.

The order attempts to end a decades-long dispute between oil and gas developers and potash interests over certain leasing opportunities on public lands in Southeast New Mexico. The final order, along with the notice of availability on the analysis of comments received on the draft order, will be published in the Federal Register. More information on the secretarial order is available on the BLM’s website: https://www.blm.gov/nm/potashorder.

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