Colorado oil and gas wells are constantly changing hands. Some risk becoming costly “orphans” along the way.
Since 2017, more than 42,000 oil and gas properties have been bought or sold in Colorado. If they fall into the wrong hands, they risk ending up abandoned, leaving the state on the hook for cleanup.
The Colorado Sun
PARACHUTE – When it comes to oil and gas companies, Bob Arrington has seen them come and seen them go. Arrington has, in succession, wrangled with three different drillers all showing up at his Battlement Mesa doorstep.
First there was Antero Resources, which sold out to Ursa Resources, which then went bankrupt with its assets bought by Houston-based Terra Energy Partners.
Along the way there have been negotiations, a promised $1 million to the community, protests and lawsuits. “We had incidents right and left,” said 84-year-old Arrington, a retired mechanical engineer. “It has been frustrating.”
The ins and outs of drilling at Battlement Mesa, a West Slope planned community of 4,500 along Colorado River, are a microcosm of the shifting patterns of ownership of oil and gas assets in the state.
Read the full story via The Colorado Sun.
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