Some Colorado landowners don’t like the abandoned oil wells left on their land so they have gone to court. They sued Denver-based oil company HRM Resources and accused the firm of transferring hundreds of orphaned wells to a shell company to avoid millions in clean-up costs reported the Guardian. The report indicated the wells …
March 2024 archive
Energy quick reads
** The Biden administration finalized a rule Wednesday that’s expected to make a significant amount of the new car market electric or hybrid. Under the rule, 56 percent of the new vehicles on the market in 2032 could be battery electric, while an additional 13 percent could be plug-in hybrids. ** Texas and New Mexico …
$100 million investment in Comstock Resources by Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones
Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones made energy news this week by investing more than another $100 million in Comstock Resources, Inc., the independent natural gas producer with operations focused on the development of the Haynesville Shale in North Louisiana and East Texas. Jones is the majority shareholder in the company based in Frisco, Texas, …
Northwest Oklahoma wildfire prompts evacuations
As the Oklahoma Forestry Division cautioned that the highest fire danger on Wednesday would be in the Panhandle, it wasn’t far off. A wildfire broke out near the Harper County town of Selman and fire departments issued a wildfire warning, urging some residents just east of Selman to evacuate the area. Selman, located about …
Roundtable planned by Petroleum Storage Tank regulators
The Oklahoma Corporation Commission’s Petroleum Storage Tank Division is set to hold its annual Industry Roundtable Meeting. In a notice this week, the PSTD stated the purpose of the meeting is to continue engagement with stakeholders, have open and broad conversations about the rules, and determine whether to conduct a formal rulemaking. The Industry …
New Mexico’s largest public utility rejected by state supreme court
Public Service Co. of New Mexico went before the New Mexico State Supreme Court and lost this week as the justices denied the state’s largest electric utility a rate rider to collect millions of dollars more from customers under New Mexico’s Renewable Energy Act. It was a unanimous ruling to reject PNM’s appeal of …
Fed interest rate announcement sent crude oil prices tumbling
As Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell announced the Fed decided to leave the nation’s interest rate exactly where it is, it sent crude oil prices sliding downward. West Texas Intermediate crude, the benchmark in the US, dropped $1.79 or 2.14% to finish the day at $81.68 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. …
Williams took a hard look at acquiring Tellurian but decided against it
A report by Reuters indicated Tulsa’s Williams Companies gave serious thought to acquiring struggling LNG developer Tellurian but came to the conclusion, it was too risky. It’s what Williams Executive Vice President of Strategy Chad Zamarin admitted in a sit-down interview this week at the CERAweek S&P Global energy conference in Houston. He …
US crude stocks including those at the Cushing Hub slipped in past week
Crude oil stocks across the U.S. and at the Cushing Hub in Oklahoma fell in the past week reported the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Cushing’s stocks fell 100,000 barrels from 31.5 million on March 8 to 31.4 million on March 15. The total stored at the northern Oklahoma oil hub is still far more …
$2 million fine against oil and gas firm over New Mexico operations
A more than $2 million fine has been leveled by the state of New Mexico against an oil and gas company for not cleaning up two produced water releases at well sites south of Carlsbad. The Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department’s Oil Conservation Division announced the notice of violation and proposed administrative civil …