Whether it will result in a speedup of drilling requests in Oklahoma’s Osage County is a question that remains to be seen, but the government says it will adopt plans to reduce delays in permitting oil and gas drilling on federal and Indian lands.
Technically, all of Osage County is considered to be under the control of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the growing delay in permits for drilling has been the cause of some lawsuits.
In making the announcement, U.S. officials said applications nationally were projected to be down 40 percent versus their historical average. As a result, the decline in energy production affected budgets in such states as Wyoming, New Mexico, Colorado, Alaska, North Dakota and Montana.
Neil Kornze, Director of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management explained the drilling approvals have been streamlined and all applications will be filed online under the new move.
Criticism has mounted under the Obama administration over its handling of drilling applications, especially in Osage county where the BIA has been accused of intentionally stalling applications. As a result, companies in Oklahoma and the U.S. say those delays have driven up production costs.
Beverly Winston at the Bureau of Land Management said the online-only permitting would allow 90 percent of applications to be completed within 115 days where the average time in 2015 was 220 days.
But there are skeptics. Kathleen Sgamma with the Western Energy Alliance is one. She doubts the potential in time savings and claims the lengthy delay in getting permits approved is driven by environmental studies and other requirements that are not included in the administration’s 220-day processing average.