Tag: Williams Companies

Colorado Fourth-District Republican US Rep Cory Gardner is filling his campaign coffers for 2012 as he did in 2010 by leaning heavily on oil-and-gas industry donors. He raked in $370,000 in the quarter that just ended. That's the most of any candidate for federal office from Colorado and topped his take in previous quarters by roughly $100,000. One of every ten dollars Gardner brought in last quarter came from oil and gas, and this quarter the percentage is higher, coming in at roughly 12 percent. That notable campaign finance record paired with the high-profile pro-drilling and environmental-regulation-rollback positions he has taken mark out the freshman congressman as an aspiring top-level advocate for oil and gas on the Hill.

Colorado oil and gas regulators are poised to set a dubious record next week when nearly $1 million in fines will be levied against a company for essentially abandoning eight gas wells in Rio Blanco County. But state officials never expect to see a penny from the now-bankrupt operator.

As the debate over hydraulic fracturing and health issues related to natural gas drilling has heated up in Garfield County in recent weeks, KJCT News 8 in Grand Junction today is reporting an early morning fire at a Williams’ well eight miles south of Rifle. The fire was reportedly put out in about an hour and half, with minimal damage and no injuries, but the incident is sure to prompt even more calls for tighter local regulation of the oil and gas industry. Williams is the most active drilling company in Garfield County, which saw the second most drilling permits issued in the state in 2010.

A dubious record will likely be set when the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC) meets over the next two days in Adams County: the highest fine ever levied against an oil and gas company for a spill in the state of Colorado.

As Congress wrangles over what’s left of meaningful energy policy reform before the August recess, Colorado’s conservation community is watching closely to make sure onshore oil and gas drilling gets as much attention as the offshore drilling that led to BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster.

Rulison resident Marion Wells, who last summer told the Colorado Independent she was an oil and gas industry “guinea pig,” recently bit back with...

A BP America spokeswoman Wednesday called a $5.2 million fine levied by the federal government for inaccurate reporting of natural gas royalties in Colorado...

Speaking at an energy confab last week, Denver mayor and Democratic gubernatorial candidate John Hickenlooper continued to walk a fine line between coddling the...

Green investor groups are pushing some of the nation’s largest natural gas drilling companies to come clean on hydraulic fracturing, a process that injects...