July 29, 2010 08:04 AM UTC

Colorado Rules Cause Drilling Slowdown (and spills and thrills)

• 8 Comments
• by: ardy39

( – promoted by Colorado Pols)

Well, do you have a better explanation for this?

“EnCana has chosen to take a wait and see approach,” said Doug Hock, director of community and public relations for EnCana. “We remain active in the state and plan to drill an exploratory well on our state leased acreage in the near future. Until the results of this can be evaluated, however, we’ve made a decision to forgo further leasing of private land.”

So, what do you tree-hugging-American-job-hating-libruls have to say in your defense now?

And if that wasn’t enough, perhaps this next will convince you …

“At this point, we’re just stopping any efforts from going forward to acquire more private minerals,” Hock said. “We have a large acreage position on state land and we are still interested in pursing assets in Michigan.”

See! So there! Now all you naysayers are just going to have to admit it. Ritter’s Rules are responsible for the slowdown in activity in …  Where? … Michigan? … Really? … Oh, never mind.

“Taking a step back is just a business decision,” [said Hock.]

Wait a minute. Slowing down is “just a business decision” in Michigan, but a slowdown in Colorado is because of the most onerous rules ever even considered by modern man? Come on EnCana, which is it?

Well, if you’re interested in the rest of the story about this Ritter-induced tragedy in Michigan (and Petoskey Exploration LLC, a Colorado based company and branch of EnCana) you can find the story here.

(In case you are wondering, Michigan has exactly zero rigs actively drilling in the state (as of July 23, according to Baker-Hughes). This is a decline of 100% from a high of 2 in 2008. In contrast, the active rig count in Colorado has increased by 13% since the new rules became effective and increased 42% since the low point was reached in October 2009.)

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Or, if you prefer your bad news closer to home, you can read here about the sleuthing COGCC staff did to identify Williams as the source for the poisoning of Ned Prather’s water well. I recommend reading this “AOC” – these people (COGCC staff) are working for you and me. They’ve earned my respect and admiration with this fine piece of detective work.

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Elsewhere in Michigan, and totally unrelated to oil and gas activity, of course, are reports of

The largest oil leak ever in the state of Michigan



Oil flows over Ceresco dam (Photo by Todd Heywood)

Here are a few highlights from this story:

Patrick Daniels, president and CEO of Enbridge, says 19,000 barrels, or about 789,000 gallons, of oil was released.

[EPA] estimates just under one million gallons of crude oil was sent spewing into Talmadge Creek and then into the Kalamazoo River.

… the oil slick has reached 16 miles down the river…

A lingering question remains about the timing of the leak due to conflicts between statements made by the company and local officials.

… 9:30 a.m. CST (10:30 a.m. Michigan time) on Monday …

… knew about the release at 9:25 p.m. on Sunday night …

… alerted to the incident at 12:30 a.m. July 26, a full 8 hours before …

… not the first time …

Dead fish are washing up on the shore of the creek and geese are found scattered throughout the area covered in oil.

It’s almost starting to seem commonplace, isn’t it?

Ho hum, just another spill.

Are these three pieces of additional evidence that there is something systemically wrong?

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[This diary was completed without using any quotes from or making any links to the Denver Past.]