We told you this would happen. The industry told you this would happen. Everyone knew this would happen. Sooner or later the oil and gas industry would get sick and tired of the shenanigans that radical environmentalists pull through their attempts to slow or stop oil and gas development here in Colorado. Today was the day that some oil and gas companies said, “enough.”
Aldo Svaldi at the Denver Post reported that several producers are looking for friendlier business climates. Brad Holly, CEO of Whiting Petroleum, a long-time Denver mainstay in the oil and gas industry, told a conference this week: “we are contemplating trying to exit the D-J Basin and focusing on the Bakken (in North Dakota).”
For those of you who don’t speak oil and gas, the D-J basin is the Denver-Julesburg basin, which is much of the northeastern part of the state, including Weld County, and the southeastern part of Wyoming.
In addition to North Dakota, other oil and gas companies are considering moving operations to Wyoming and Texas, which have friendlier business climates.
And who could blame them?
Radical environmentalists stymie oil and gas development at every turn. From staging protests at city council meetings to pushing legislation meant to block oil and gas production to reaching irrational conclusions from discredited studies meant to sully the reputations of oil and gas companies, why would this industry stay here?
Perhaps the worst of it was the threats against oil and gas workers. While some folks on the Twitters mourned the loss of Dave Krieger from the Boulder Daily Camera, we thought, “what took so long?” after he printed an opinion piece from a reader that called for violence against oil and gas workers.
Just how much crap should one industry put up with before they throw in the towel and say, “I give up?”