It’s ideal drilling weather in Wyoming, and independent oil producer Howard Cooper with Three Crown Petroleum said he is ready to “drill, baby, drill.”
Unfortunately, Cooper said his wells are stuck in a bureaucratic fog and can’t be drilled, leaving them stalled.
That’s even as he sees federal officials like Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum and Department of Energy Secretary Chris Wright talk up the need to increase U.S. oil and gas production.
Cooper told Cowboy State Daily he has a rig, partners, and infrastructure in place now to drill a pair of 2.5-mile horizontal Niobrara Formation wells in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin.
But he can’t move forward because the wells are still waiting on a single signature from the Bureau of Land Management on a court-ordered supplemental analysis that was completed months ago.
Cooper is not alone.
In all, more than 1,300 Wyoming federal leases covering 1.2 million acres are waiting on the same 200-page analysis, according to the Petroleum Association of Wyoming.
Cooper has been told the analysis has been finished for months and is just awaiting a final signature from the BLM director.
“They said this was going to be done next week,” Cooper said he was told. “That was three months ago. It’s always next week, and next week never comes.”
Cooper’s frustration with the legal limbo has deepened every time he hears senior officials routinely speaking on television and national conferences about the need to boost U.S. oil and gas production.
This week, Cooper noticed both Burgum and Wright touting a new oilfield in California that the two officials said needs to be developed.
“They’re out there saying, ‘Drill, baby, drill,’” Cooper said. “And we would love to. We’re ready to drill right now. It’s literally sitting there ready to go. But we can’t drill wells if (those) guys aren’t proactive.”
Any Day Now …
Cooper’s two wells are among 1,323 leases from 12 lease sales the BLM held from May 2015 through March 2020. They cover about 1.2 million acres in Wyoming.
The leases in question were successfully challenged by environmental groups during President Donald Trump’s first term.
The groups had claimed the environmental analysis for water usage, sage grouse protections, and greenhouse gas emissions was inadequate.
A judge agreed and ordered a supplemental study to cure the issues with the sales, which also included areas in Nevada, Utah and Montana.
Ryan McConnaughey, vice president and communications director for the Petroleum Association of Wyoming, said his organization has been told that the BLM is “nearing completion” on that work and that the documents are expected “any day” now.
“Unfortunately, litigation has become an outsized tool to obstruct development on federal lands,” he said. “That is why we support Sen. (John) Barrasso’s continued efforts at permitting, NEPA, and litigation reforms that make development more expedient while still protecting the public’s right to challenge federal actions.”
Spokespeople for Republican U.S. Sens. Cynthia Lummis and Barrasso meanwhile, said their respective teams are aware of the issue and are working with the Department of the Interior to procure the necessary signatures.
“Stevan Pearce was just confirmed as the new director of the Bureau of Land Management,” Barrasso spokeswoman Laura Mengelkamp said. “Senator Barrasso is confident Director Pearce will be a strong partner in the fight to protect the multiple-use of Wyoming’s federal lands, quickly clearing the permitting backlog at the BLM is a great place to start.”
The Bureau of Land Management did not respond to an inquiry from Cowboy State Daily about the issue.
Ready For Months Now
Those responses don’t sit particularly well with Cooper, though, because the supplemental analysis was ready to sign months ago before Pearce came on board.
Steven Degenfelder, who works as a land manager for Kirkwood Oil and Gas in Casper, agrees the delay is puzzling, and not just because of how long the documents have been ready to sign.
It’s also puzzling because two recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings have given the Trump administration a much stronger position against future such NEPA challenges.
“The real question is what’s holding up the signing of this document?” he said. “That was a question that was brought up at a meeting I was in yesterday with PAW and BLM in Cheyenne, and all they can do is say, ‘We’re waiting.’”
Degenfelder said if the delay is an attempt to avoid another lawsuit, he thinks that would be “naive.”
“BLM has also said they will not process APDs (applications for permit to drill) on leases subject to a lawsuit,” he added. “That holds up everything, and is just as good for environmental groups, since they could not get the leases vacated.”
Losing Millions While Rig Sits Idle
For Cooper, every day his well permits sit in limbo is a day he didn’t produce roughly 2,000 barrels of oil — roughly 1,000 barrels of oil from each well — at $100 oil per barrel.
“This is costing me $2 million a day,” he said. “That’s a lot of money.”
Meanwhile, Cooper is out hundreds of thousands of dollars that he’s already spent on these wells.
“I’ve paid my geologists. I’ve paid my engineers,” he said. “I’ve paid my attorneys. I’ve bought the leases.”
He also has investors ready to write $20 million checks to drill the wells in the Niobrara Formation of Wyoming’s Powder River Basin, but they’re getting restless.
“My partners are ready to write those checks today,” he said. “If we do not get these permits, they go away. I’m going to lose all my partners.”
That makes the constant “drill, baby, drill” mantra particularly irksome to Cooper right now. He’d like nothing better than that, if he could just get that final signature, allowing him to legally move forward.
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
