February 28, 2023 10:47 AM UTC

Big Oil Reaps Billions In Colorado After Lying To You For Years

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• by: Colorado Pols

As the Denver Business Journal’s Greg Avery reported last Friday:

Wells of Colorado’s two biggest local oil producers pumped $3 billion in profits last year, and the companies see production holding steady in 2023 despite freezing temperatures sharply cutting production to start the year…

PDC Energy, which has some production in West Texas, expects to average 255,000 to 265,000 barrels of oil and natural gas equivalents per day in 2023. Close to 88% of that will be from northeast Colorado.

Pumping an average of 247,000 barrels of oil and gas in 2022 netted the company nearly $1.8 billion in full-year profits from $4.3 billion in oil and gas sales in 2022, using the sale figure before financial hedges are counted.

Keep in mind that these huge profits were reaped during the 2022 election year, when the high price of gas and its contribution to general economic inflation was seized upon as a political weapon for Republicans to use against Democrats. As it turns out, “Bidenflation” was a river of profits flowing directly into the pockets of industries who complained the most about the policy changes from ex-President Donald Trump to Joe Biden’s administration.

The massive profits reaped by energy companies while their political surrogates blamed Democrats for high prices charged to consumers is indefensible, but the dishonesty required to make the claim is nothing new–especially in Colorado, where oil and gas producers have been openly lying to the public for years, warning that additional regulations on their business would “shut down oil and gas” production in Colorado. This misinformation reached its peak during the battle over 2019’s Senate Bill 181, which changed the mission of oil and gas regulators in Colorado to prioritize public health over growing the industry. This legislation and its now-proven fictional “disastrous impact” on the oil and gas industry helped fuel a recall campaign against a Greeley-based Democratic lawmaker that forced her resignation in the summer of 2019, as well as the successive failed recall campaigns against Gov. Jared Polis and other Democratic lawmakers that continued to sputter as recently as last year.

Four years after the passage of Senate Bill 181, not only is the industry alive and well, but in their own words thriving like they haven’t in decades:

PDC Energy’s $1.3 billion acquisition of Denver-based Great Western Oil & Gas, which closed in May, gave it more drilling locations, and now the company counts an inventory of 2,100 wells it can drill in coming years, most of which would be profitable at oil prices significantly lower than today, the company says.

“PDC Energy today is in the strongest position in its 50-year history,” said Lance Lauck, executive vice president of corporate development and strategy, during Thursday’s conference call. [Pols emphasis]

Between the passage of Colorado’s landmark oil and gas reforms in 2019 and today, the industry has endured global shocks like the pause in demand during the COVID-19 pandemic and the invasion of Ukraine by Russia–both of which immeasurably more impactful events on the industry than the passage of SB-181. Now that we know this industry reaped massive profits after terrorizing Coloradans over the passage of legislation they warned would “shut down oil and gas” in Colorado, why would anyone trust them when they argue that further regulation to clean up the industry would do the same?

If the price of energy justifies it, Colorado producers will play by the rules to get it. But before they give in, they’ll make up a campaign of lies and foment political chaos to avoid playing by the rules. But the one thing they can’t hide is the massive profits that belie all of their false claims of persecution.

The dishonesty of it all should make even the most battle-hardened coal-roller mad as hell.