Seattle PI – by Keith RiddlerBOISE, Idaho (AP) — Federal officials in Idaho in a battle with a Texas oil company over what is believed to be a profitable natural gas field in Payette County plan to offer five parcels for competitive leasing by April.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management on Monday opened a 30-day public comment period about the proposed lease sale that will offer 6,350 acres to potential drilling in southwest Idaho.
Houston-based Alta Mesa responded Tuesday afternoon by saying it will suspend its request with Idaho officials to exclude BLM lands and potential royalties from a drilling unit.
“One way to look at it is as an olive branch,” said company spokesman John Foster. “Alta Mesa has been very diligently and carefully working hard to help the BLM develop the process that creates a reasonable pace of development. It’s taken a while to get there, but we’re hopeful this decision by the BLM will lead to that kind of reasonable pace.”
Dave Murphy, the BLM’s Idaho chief of lands, minerals and water rights, didn’t return a call from The Associated Press on Tuesday.
The BLM concluded an environmental assessment earlier this month that found no significant impact with the leasing. But the agency said additional steps involving drilling will require more environmental analysis.
The five-member Idaho Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, appointed by Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter in July 2013, has openly struggled in trying to referee the battle between the two sides as the state’s nascent natural gas industry picks up speed with the development of new technologies.
Commissioners in September on a 3-2 vote rejected Alta Mesa’s petition to omit 187 acres of BLM land from a 615-acre drilling unit, a move the company said allowed the BLM to dictate how mineral rights are developed in Idaho.
But commissioners reversed themselves in October with a 4-1 vote to hold another hearing to gather additional evidence. That hearing is set for May 7 in Boise, said Sharla Arledge, spokeswoman for the Idaho Department of Lands. That meeting was set before Alta Mesa’s decision on Tuesday.
The BLM in announcing the comment period on the leasing, while not naming Alta Mesa, said “The purpose of this proposal is to protect the federal mineral resource from uncompensated drainage and surface resources from potential damage. Uncompensated drainage means that federal mineral resources are being produced by adjacent wells without paying the United States royalties required by the Mineral Leasing Act, as amended.”
In previous skirmishes before oil and gas commissioners, BLM officials have said they’d also like to have natural gas production start because it brings in money for the federal government, half of that going to Idaho. But the BLM has also said federal laws require environmental analysis.
Alta Mesa is working on wells and infrastructure on other drilling units in southwest Idaho that don’t contain public land.
Mike Christian, an attorney for Alta Mesa, has said previously that the company was fighting hard against the BLM on the 615-acre drilling unit because of its precedent-setting possibilities combined with there being a lot of BLM-administered land in the area where Alta Mesa appears to believe natural gas is found.
“It’s taken a while to get there, but we’re hopeful this decision by the BLM will lead to that kind of reasonable pace.”
Don’t hold your breath, cowboy.
ANY decision made by BLM will NOT lead to ANYTHING reasonable.