Oil/Gas

In a minority report, the recently concluded 21-member Colorado statewide task force looking at local control issues for oil and natural gas activities has left a wide array of unfinished business captured in 24 recommendations that failed to receive two-thirds votes. They are part of the final report, but not part of the nine recommendations being passed on for implementation.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) took preliminary steps Wednesday that could lead to the leasing of heretofore untouched federal forest lands in south-central Utah for possible oil and natural gas exploration. The appeal period for the action ends March 25.

A Democratic North Dakota legislator is fighting an uphill battle, pushing a bill (SB 2366) in the Republican-controlled legislature to reorganize the state’s regulatory oversight of the oil and natural gas sectors.

In an action watched closely by oil and natural gas interests, the Wyoming Air Quality Advisory Board in the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) on Wednesday approved measures intended to reduce smog and improve air quality in the state’s Upper Green River Basin ozone nonattainment area.

Economic benefits from Colorado’s upstream and midstream oil and natural gas industry totaled $126 billion between 2008 and 2012, according to a study highlighted Thursday by the University of Colorado’s Leeds School of Business.

There will be no big decline in North Dakota oil and natural gas production over the next two years, the state’s chief oil/gas regulatory told an association of the state’s county energy officials on Thursday. Major production will remain concentrated in four counties: Dunn, McKenzie, Mountrail and Williams.

A governor’s task force proposed as an 11th-hour compromise to avoid a ballot proposition fight over the issue of local control of oil/natural gas drilling, particularly hydraulic fracturing (fracking), has yet to get off the ground since Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper announced plans for it early this month.

Colorado firefighters Monday afternoon continued to battle a wildfire in the far northwest corner of the state, seeking to keep surrounding ranches and oil and natural production wells out of harm’s way. No cause for the fire has been determined, and industry sources had no information on possible impact on oil/gas operations in the area.

As a backdrop to a larger drama that appears headed toward a statewide electoral stage, a Boulder County District Court judge on Thursday rejected a ban on hydraulic fracturing (fracking) by the city of Longmont, CO, but allowed the ban to stay in place while the city considers an appeal.