Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission hearings to craft new rules giving local governments a greater say on drilling in populated areas bogged down Monday and Tuesday.
“We are not moving rapidly through this,” director Matt Lepore warned commission members before asking them to set aside Dec. 7 and another day, to be determined, for more rule-making talks.
After hours of testimony, basic questions like the definition of a “large-scale” drilling operation that triggers local notifications and stricter safeguards remained hotly contested.
Representatives of the oil and gas industry testified Tuesday morning that they want the threshold for large-scale operation to start at 12 horizontal wells or 16 vertical or directional wells.
“We believe well count is a more definitive threshold,” said Eric Jacobsen, an executive with Noble Energy. “It is easier for the public to measure.”
COGCC staff have defined the large-scale trigger as 90,000 feet of wellbore or 4,000 barrels of petroleum storage. Some local governments, by contrast, want the state threshold cut in half.
Less than 1 percent of drilling applications the state has received meet the large-scale definition and are within 1,000 feet of more populated urban mitigation areas.
Going with industry’s well-count threshold would cut that meager number in half, critics charged.
But industry representatives said future drilling will come ever closer to municipal boundaries, and that lower prices are pushing them to use ever larger well pads.
Anadarko Petroleum, for example, expects that 40 percent of future wells will be near or within municipal boundaries.
After hours of discussing the definition of large-scale and related terms, the hearings moved onto the process for notifying and consulting with local governments, a topic that was just as contentious.
The oil and gas industry for its part asked for definitive timelines to prevent local governments from using local consultations to stall or block their plans.
Some local governments want operators to provide alternative drill sites more removed from homes from the get-go and asked for citizen notification.
Garfield and Weld counties, which have years of experience reviewing projects, questioned the logic of adding local consultations.
“We feel they are unnecessary,” said Weld County Commissioner Barbara Kirkmeyer. “It is an attempt to usurp our authority.”
Aldo Svaldi: 303-954-1410, asvaldi@denverpost.com or @aldosvaldi
