There’s a lot of petroleum promise in Ohio’s Utica Shale. Drilling and development are ramping up, but there’s still uncertainty. And Ohioans don’t quite know what to expect. So, Cleveland Plain Dealer business reporter John Funk traveled to Oklahoma City, “the energy capital of an energy state,” to take home some insight on boom-and-bust: In [...]
Osage County is the only county in Oklahoma that isn’t monitored by the Corporation Commission, the state’s oil and gas regulator. Mineral rights in Osage County are held in a federal trust for the Osage Nation, and oil and gas drilling is regulated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Landowners and the tribe say the BIA [...]
Drilling for oil and natural gas has surged, and the pile of cash owed to unknown mineral-rights owners is growing exponentially. The Corporation Commission and the State Treasurer are sitting on a combined $105 million in unclaimed royalty payments, Oklahoma Watch’s Chase Cook reports. The Commission’s account alone has ballooned from $5 million a decade [...]
The oil boom and pipeline bottleneck has been good to Oklahoma’s Port of Catoosa. The inland river-port — which connects Oklahoma to the Mississippi River — only recently started shipping crude. The first barges bearing oil left the port in July 2011, the Journal Record’s D. Ray Tuttle reports. Now crude is fueling a shipping [...]
In Oklahoma’s oil and gas country, you can’t build a home near a well. But drilling a well next to a home is perfectly legal.
A surge in domestic drilling for oil and natural gas has left states wrestling over laws and rules governing how individuals and industry can live and work near each other. In Oklahoma, big-energy is generally considered a good neighbor. But drilling doesn’t benefit everyone.
To drill an oil, gas or disposal well in Oklahoma, operators have to post a bond with the Corporation Commission. But the financial requirements to drill in Oklahoma are the lowest in the region — too low to cover the risk of abandoned wells, the Journal Record’s Sarah Terry-Cobo reports.
Theft of crude and oil-field equipment is on the rise in western and central Oklahoma, the Journal Record‘s Sarah Terry-Cobo reports. Such theft is difficult to detect because well sites are concentrated in sparsely populated parts of rural Oklahoma. A multi-county response is being organized with state investigators, county sheriffs and corporate security officials, the [...]
Oil and natural gas producers, drillers and service companies pressure themselves to prioritize workplace safety in oil fields, company representatives tell The Oklahoman‘s Adam Wilmoth: The oil and natural gas industry has come a long way from the wild days of the 1970s when it was not unusual for rig hands and other oil-field workers [...]
Rural electric cooperatives are working “overtime” to meet increased power demand from Oklahoma’s oil patch, reports Electric Co-op Today. Officials with the Kay Electric Co-op in Blackwell — which serves the Mississippi Lime play — say power demand has doubled in recent years, and they say it could double again in the next two. Co-ops are [...]
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