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Billings

SO much for Biden admin stopping oil and gas leasing

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"The Biden administration has approved 3,091 new drilling permits on public lands at a rate of 332 per month, a faster pace than the Trump administration’s 300 permits per month. The administration recently opened more than 80 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico to auction for oil and gas drilling, a record offshore sale that will lock in years of greenhouse gas emissions."

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/26/biden-recommends-reforms-to-oil-and-gas-drilling-stops-short-of-ban.html

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The Biden administration has stopped oil and gas leasing of federal minerals in Wyoming.  That’s a fact.  There hasn’t been a lease sale this entire year despite FLPMA’s and Mineral Leasing Act express requirements requiring quarterly lease sales and despite federal courts telling the Biden administration that quarterly lease sales are required under the law.  
 

In addition, the BLM previously approved over 500+ parcels for leasing in Wyoming (majority in lands previously leased).  The Biden administration has had interior re-evaluate all of that and cut the leasing parcel list to 195 parcels removing many of the desirable Powder River Basin parcels.  Due to the federal government’s checkerboard mineral ownership on privately held surface in the PRB (due to federal mineral reservations under the stock raising homestead act) development in some areas has ground to a halt.  
 

I’m sorry but this administration’s use of executive orders and disdain for congressional law when it comes to federal mineral development is disgusting IMO.  
 

Any suggestion that the Biden administration has been favorable to development in Wyoming is wrong.  Plain and simple, the administration has directly instituted an attack on Wyoming’s livelihood and income to the states coffers.  It is the 50% share of federal lease bonuses and lease royalties that goes to Wyoming that keeps our state afloat.  
 

You may not like these inconvenient truths and I get that.  But they are truths nonetheless.  

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2 hours ago, OrediggerPoke said:

The Biden administration has stopped oil and gas leasing of federal minerals in Wyoming.  That’s a fact.  There hasn’t been a lease sale this entire year despite FLPMA’s and Mineral Leasing Act express requirements requiring quarterly lease sales and despite federal courts telling the Biden administration that quarterly lease sales are required under the law.  
 

In addition, the BLM previously approved over 500+ parcels for leasing in Wyoming (majority in lands previously leased).  The Biden administration has had interior re-evaluate all of that and cut the leasing parcel list to 195 parcels removing many of the desirable Powder River Basin parcels.  Due to the federal government’s checkerboard mineral ownership on privately held surface in the PRB (due to federal mineral reservations under the stock raising homestead act) development in some areas has ground to a halt.  
 

I’m sorry but this administration’s use of executive orders and disdain for congressional law when it comes to federal mineral development is disgusting IMO.  
 

Any suggestion that the Biden administration has been favorable to development in Wyoming is wrong.  Plain and simple, the administration has directly instituted an attack on Wyoming’s livelihood and income to the states coffers.  It is the 50% share of federal lease bonuses and lease royalties that goes to Wyoming that keeps our state afloat.  
 

You may not like these inconvenient truths and I get that.  But they are truths nonetheless.  

https://wyofile.com/wyo-drilling-rig-count-triples-during-biden-leasing-pause/

 

Further, of hundreds of counties in the Intermountain West, Wyoming has nine of the 15 with the highest number of federal leases sold in the last five years. Wyoming has enough untapped, leased federal property to sustain drilling for 67 years, the CEI report states.

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4 hours ago, Billings said:

https://wyofile.com/wyo-drilling-rig-count-triples-during-biden-leasing-pause/

 

Further, of hundreds of counties in the Intermountain West, Wyoming has nine of the 15 with the highest number of federal leases sold in the last five years. Wyoming has enough untapped, leased federal property to sustain drilling for 67 years, the CEI report states.

Just because a lease is issued doesn’t mean: (1) it can be drilled; and (2) it is even in an area where oil and gas development is currently prospective.  
 

You just don’t get it.  With Wyoming’s spacing rules, an operator basically has to secure 1280 acres of 2 section drilling rights to drill a 2 mile horizontal (the standard well being drilled in shale plays of Wyoming).  If it can’t, drilling is basically not feasible.  So by the feds failing to list and issue 100s of leases in the PRB (the current hot spot for oil and gas development in Wyoming), large swaths have been rendered undrillable.  And if you don’t believe this, I’d suggest you contact the following: Anschutz, EOG, Anadarko, Navigation, Titan and more.  
 

And Wyoming has the most prospective amount of federal minerals outside of Alaska due to the nature of federal mineral reservations under the homestead acts.   So stating that Wyoming is near the top of federal leasing over the past 5 years is an irrelevant measure.  Texas has basically no federal minerals so obviously it isn’t on the list even though it leads onshore development.  
 

This administration has targeted Wyoming oil and gas development.  It isn’t feasible to develop oil and gas projects that don’t include federal minerals outside of Laramie county.  These are facts.  

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1 hour ago, OrediggerPoke said:

Just because a lease is issued doesn’t mean: (1) it can be drilled; and (2) it is even in an area where oil and gas development is currently prospective.  
 

You just don’t get it.  With Wyoming’s spacing rules, an operator basically has to secure 1280 acres of 2 section drilling rights to drill a 2 mile horizontal (the standard well being drilled in shale plays of Wyoming).  If it can’t, drilling is basically not feasible.  So by the feds failing to list and issue 100s of leases in the PRB (the current hot spot for oil and gas development in Wyoming), large swaths have been rendered undrillable.  And if you don’t believe this, I’d suggest you contact the following: Anschutz, EOG, Anadarko, Navigation, Titan and more.  
 

And Wyoming has the most prospective amount of federal minerals outside of Alaska due to the nature of federal mineral reservations under the homestead acts.   So stating that Wyoming is near the top of federal leasing over the past 5 years is an irrelevant measure.  Texas has basically no federal minerals so obviously it isn’t on the list even though it leads onshore development.  
 

This administration has targeted Wyoming oil and gas development.  It isn’t feasible to develop oil and gas projects that don’t include federal minerals outside of Laramie county.  These are facts.  

Yeah I brought this up before that most companies won't bother drilling unless they have a series of contiguous sections to drill in one go. It's why the argument of stockpiled leases held by oil and gas doesn't work.  There is a reason they were holding them back and it's most likely because they were waiting for additional sections to be leased to make it feasible.

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22 minutes ago, HR_Poke said:

Yeah I brought this up before that most companies won't bother drilling unless they have a series of contiguous sections to drill in one go. It's why the argument of stockpiled leases held by oil and gas doesn't work.  There is a reason they were holding them back and it's most likely because they were waiting for additional sections to be leased to make it feasible.

The 1280 acre requirement is to drill one well.  But you’re right.  A company is not going to invest in the necessary infrastructure for oil and gas development unless it can develop on an economy of scale.  
 

i.e. in Wyoming, there is a limitation on flaring for 6 months but pipeline infrastructure to take away the gas often costs in the 10s of millions.  Accordingly, a company cannot profitably drill unless it can drill many wells on which to split the costs of the takeaway infrastructure.  

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41 minutes ago, OrediggerPoke said:

The 1280 acre requirement is to drill one well.  But you’re right.  A company is not going to invest in the necessary infrastructure for oil and gas development unless it can develop on an economy of scale.  
 

i.e. in Wyoming, there is a limitation on flaring for 6 months but pipeline infrastructure to take away the gas often costs in the 10s of millions.  Accordingly, a company cannot profitably drill unless it can drill many wells on which to split the costs of the takeaway infrastructure.  

I went to a conference where the GIS guy from Whitestar had developed some automated script to identify and visualize upcoming available leases in relation to existing owned leases. He said he made a pretty good profit selling it to a bunch of the local oil and gas groups. Saved them a ton of man hours.

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28 minutes ago, HR_Poke said:

I went to a conference where the GIS guy from Whitestar had developed some automated script to identify and visualize upcoming available leases in relation to existing owned leases. He said he made a pretty good profit selling it to a bunch of the local oil and gas groups. Saved them a ton of man hours.

Sounds like a good app.  BLM has all of the information available on its own LR2000 app/website though.  

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15 minutes ago, OrediggerPoke said:

Sounds like a good app.  BLM has all of the information available on its own LR2000 app/website though.  

This was probably 10 years ago. Might have predated that website.

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14 hours ago, OrediggerPoke said:

Just because a lease is issued doesn’t mean: (1) it can be drilled; and (2) it is even in an area where oil and gas development is currently prospective.  
 

You just don’t get it.  With Wyoming’s spacing rules, an operator basically has to secure 1280 acres of 2 section drilling rights to drill a 2 mile horizontal (the standard well being drilled in shale plays of Wyoming).  If it can’t, drilling is basically not feasible.  So by the feds failing to list and issue 100s of leases in the PRB (the current hot spot for oil and gas development in Wyoming), large swaths have been rendered undrillable.  And if you don’t believe this, I’d suggest you contact the following: Anschutz, EOG, Anadarko, Navigation, Titan and more.  
 

And Wyoming has the most prospective amount of federal minerals outside of Alaska due to the nature of federal mineral reservations under the homestead acts.   So stating that Wyoming is near the top of federal leasing over the past 5 years is an irrelevant measure.  Texas has basically no federal minerals so obviously it isn’t on the list even though it leads onshore development.  
 

This administration has targeted Wyoming oil and gas development.  It isn’t feasible to develop oil and gas projects that don’t include federal minerals outside of Laramie county.  These are facts.  

Interesting on the adjoining areas of public land.  IS that back to railroad days?

 

However public lands are open to drilling again.   The royalty rate is up.  (hadn't been raised in over 100 years so that was overdue).  AlSo increased bond rates fo clean up that had not been raised in decades.  The administration has proposed another round of oil and gas sales early next year in Wyoming, Colorado, Montana and other states. 

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2 hours ago, Billings said:

Interesting on the adjoining areas of public land.  IS that back to railroad days?

 

However public lands are open to drilling again.   The royalty rate is up.  (hadn't been raised in over 100 years so that was overdue).  AlSo increased bond rates fo clean up that had not been raised in decades.  The administration has proposed another round of oil and gas sales early next year in Wyoming, Colorado, Montana and other states. 

Most minerals owned by the federal government in the Powder River Basin are private surface lands (federally owned minerals).  Nothing to do with the railroad and everything to do with the homesteading acts the lands were patented under.  In short, these are not public surface lands.  
 

Bonding has always been a matter of discretion of the BLM and bonding also occurs at the state levels (even for federal minerals).  Thus, wells in drilling units in Wyoming that include any federal minerals are double bonded (at both the BLM and WOGCC).  The federal bonds are relatively meaningless from any sort of environmental protection and reclamation standpoint considering the WOGCC largely regulates plug and abandonment and reclamation.  
 

The Biden administration didn’t propose anything.  The courts compelled them to begin quarterly lease sales again because the administration had issued executive orders that were contrary to congressional law that compels quarterly lease sales.  (I.e rather than enforce laws passed by Congress the Biden administration decided to would just overrule congressional law on its own accord).  But rather than list the parcels in Wyoming that had previously been identified, had gone through extensive NEPA review and had been approved for leasing, the Biden administration cut the parcels from 500+ to 195 (most of which are worthless parcels).  
 

I’m sorry if you really believe this administration gives a damn about Wyoming and how Wyoming is going to fund its state and schools because it doesn’t. Wyoming is an irrelevant amount of electoral votes and population and that’s how we are being treated by the current administration.  
 

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18 hours ago, OrediggerPoke said:

Most minerals owned by the federal government in the Powder River Basin are private surface lands (federally owned minerals).  Nothing to do with the railroad and everything to do with the homesteading acts the lands were patented under.  In short, these are not public surface lands.  
 

Bonding has always been a matter of discretion of the BLM and bonding also occurs at the state levels (even for federal minerals).  Thus, wells in drilling units in Wyoming that include any federal minerals are double bonded (at both the BLM and WOGCC).  The federal bonds are relatively meaningless from any sort of environmental protection and reclamation standpoint considering the WOGCC largely regulates plug and abandonment and reclamation.  
 

The Biden administration didn’t propose anything.  The courts compelled them to begin quarterly lease sales again because the administration had issued executive orders that were contrary to congressional law that compels quarterly lease sales.  (I.e rather than enforce laws passed by Congress the Biden administration decided to would just overrule congressional law on its own accord).  But rather than list the parcels in Wyoming that had previously been identified, had gone through extensive NEPA review and had been approved for leasing, the Biden administration cut the parcels from 500+ to 195 (most of which are worthless parcels).  
 

I’m sorry if you really believe this administration gives a damn about Wyoming and how Wyoming is going to fund its state and schools because it doesn’t. Wyoming is an irrelevant amount of electoral votes and population and that’s how we are being treated by the current administration.  
 

I personally don't think any politician cares about Wyoming other than Yellowstone and Grand Teton.  But Wyo needs to look in a mirror.  Every bust, and I lived through a few there, has been followed by calls for diversification and no action.  Sooner or later it was going to bite the state in the butt and now it has.   Biden or no Biden the end of coal is approaching.  I also think Fossil Fuels, in general, have been getting a cheap ride on federal land for a long time and that needed to be reviewed.  You obviously know a lot more about the leasing detail than I do.  I do know a few ranchers who were pissed they did not own the mineral rights though.

 

It is also disturbing how many orphan and uncapped wells exist in Wyoming.

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17 hours ago, Lester_in_reno said:

because we assuredly know burning leaves now from trees that died 249 million years ago is good for the planet!

Virtually none of Wyoming's oil and gas deposits come from leaves or from trees that died 249 million years ago or at any time. Wyoming's oil and gas deposits largely come from a time when Wyoming was under the Western Interior Seaway and prior to the Laramide orogeny.  If you're going to make statements might as well be a bit educated.

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On 11/27/2021 at 10:43 PM, Billings said:

I personally don't think any politician cares about Wyoming other than Yellowstone and Grand Teton.  But Wyo needs to look in a mirror.  Every bust, and I lived through a few there, has been followed by calls for diversification and no action.  Sooner or later it was going to bite the state in the butt and now it has.   Biden or no Biden the end of coal is approaching.  I also think Fossil Fuels, in general, have been getting a cheap ride on federal land for a long time and that needed to be reviewed.  You obviously know a lot more about the leasing detail than I do.  I do know a few ranchers who were pissed they did not own the mineral rights though.

 

It is also disturbing how many orphan and uncapped wells exist in Wyoming.

Diversify to what?  Wyoming has passed every law imaginable to be favorable to the location of a wide array of businesses.  Wyoming is the leader in crypto legislation.  Wyoming is as business friendly as it comes.  It turns out, however, that large companies are unable to acquire the necessary workforce in Wyoming and largely locate elsewhere and in urban centers.

 

Wyoming has a wider array of natural resources than virtually any other place on Earth.  Wyoming will always be a state that survives and exists on its natural resources (including oil, gas, uranium, trona, bentonites, rare earths, coal, wind, solar, geothermal, pore space, etc...)

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Just now, OrediggerPoke said:

Diversify to what?  Wyoming has passed every law imaginable to be favorable to the location of a wide array of businesses.  Wyoming is the leader in crypto legislation.  Wyoming is as business friendly as it comes.  It turns out, however, that large companies are unable to acquire the necessary workforce in Wyoming and largely locate elsewhere and in urban centers.

 

Wyoming has a wider array of natural resources than virtually any other place on Earth.  Wyoming will always be a state that survives and exists on its natural resources (including oil, gas, uranium, trona, bentonites, rare earths, coal, wind, solar, geothermal, pore space, etc...)

IDK man. Mead's diversification plan was literally "double down on energy". Cheyenne in particular has been so NIMBY it pushes industry out. 

Wyoming is trying to be anti population growth and pro economic growth and doesn't get how those are in opposition. 

Remember that every argument you have with someone on MWCboard is actually the continuation of a different argument they had with someone else also on MWCboard. 

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3 minutes ago, happycamper said:

IDK man. Mead's diversification plan was literally "double down on energy". Cheyenne in particular has been so NIMBY it pushes industry out. 

Wyoming is trying to be anti population growth and pro economic growth and doesn't get how those are in opposition. 

Cheyenne has not been NIMBY...I'd actually argue that Cheyenne and LEADS have gone above and beyond to try and attract business.  If you didn't know, check out the new data centers and crypto headquarters to be located in Cheyenne that were just announced last week.  

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1 minute ago, happycamper said:

IDK man. Mead's diversification plan was literally "double down on energy". Cheyenne in particular has been so NIMBY it pushes industry out. 

Wyoming is trying to be anti population growth and pro economic growth and doesn't get how those are in opposition. 

that's not the governments issue.  That's the incredible idiocy of the local populace.  All the boomers in Cheyenne didn't want growth, they were terrified Cheyenne would turn into the front range in CO and wanted fewer people there.  Except not a single one of them figured out that if you aren't growing you aren't going to keep people in the state especially youth.  The state made a huge deal that Wyoming's biggest export was it's youth for 10 years and not a single one of them gave a shit.  Well now they don't have anyone to run everything including nursing homes and assisted living facilities that they now need.  

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1 minute ago, OrediggerPoke said:

Cheyenne has not been NIMBY...I'd actually argue that Cheyenne and LEADS have gone above and beyond to try and attract business.  If you didn't know, check out the new data centers and crypto headquarters to be located in Cheyenne that were just announced last week.  

The govt hasn't been.  The residents have.  

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