and two of its competitors, and Extraction Oil and Gas, reached a last-minute deal Sunday night that will allow Crestone to move forward with plans to develop a 12-square-mile oil field in eastern Boulder County.
The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission signed off on the agreement Monday morning, paving the way for the first-ever use of a new planning tool created by state regulators in 2008 to encourage oil companies to include communities in oil and gas planning.
The approval means Denver-based Crestone Peak Resources, which hopes to develop a 12-square-mile oil field in east Boulder County near Erie, will have nine months to come up with a Comprehensive Development Plan. The idea is to ensure community participants — including Boulder County, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, landowners and others — have a say in how wells are spaced and operated, among other things, before the plan is approved. Crestone has proposed up to 216 wells for the area.
The proposal, unveiled by Crestone in March, had been deadlocked because Crestone had asked the state to OK a “stand still” agreement that bars other oil companies in the area — in this case, Anadarko Petroleum Corporation and Extraction Oil and Gas — from applying to drill in the region while Crestone crafted its plan. Anadarko and Extraction Oil and Gas had protested the move, but agreed to it in a last-minute deal reached Sunday night, according to COGCC Executive Director Matt Lepore.
after a devastating house explosion in Firestone killed two people and critically injured another on April 17. Investigators blame the fatal fire on a supply line from a gas well about 178 feet from the home that was cut.
.
