Colorado has had nine months now to live with new oil and natural gas drilling regulations that dramatically changed the permitting process for drillers, but they couldn’t have come at a worse time.
A recent Greeley Times article continues…
While drillers and other industry insiders worked to meet new environmental requirements in oil and gas permitting, the market may as well have pulled the rug from beneath them. Natural gas prices plunged, while oil prices have only slowly crept up from record lows.
The result was a massive slowdown of oil and gas drilling and permitting across the state in 2009. Much of that slowdown has occurred in Weld County, which has affected regional employment and will seriously impact government revenues when that production is taxed.
Some continue to call for systematic change in the regulations, while those who helped implement the new rules say the problems already are working themselves out because the market is improving.
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