What Goes Around, Comes Around: NDIC Grants Huge Flaring Exemption -- April 21, 2015

I was wrong. I was sure the NDIC would not grant the big, bad oil and gas industry its request. But I was wrong. Apparently "someone" was bigger and badder than the big, bad oil and gas industry. The Dickinson Press is reporting:

The North Dakota Industrial Commission granted relief Tuesday from its natural gas flaring policy after a pipeline project failed to move forward and the alternative will take another year to construct.

Commissioners granted six-month relief from its flaring goals to 105 oil and gas wells owned by XTO Energy that were expected to be connected this year to a natural gas pipeline.

But ONEOK, which proposed the pipeline, halted the project after attempts to negotiate with the Three Affiliated Tribes over a segment of the pipeline route were unsuccessful, Lynn Helms, Director of the Department of Mineral Resources told commissioners.

Now ONEOK plans to construct a different pipeline and gas processing plant but the project will not be complete until 2016, Helms said.

In an effort to reduce flaring, commissioners adopted gas capture targets for the industry to meet. But the commission has been granting some exemptions to the policy for extenuating circumstances.

XTO requested relief from the flaring policy for 143 wells through the third quarter of 2016.

Helms recommended that commissioners grant the relief for six months and require XTO to come back and request an extension at that time.

Much more at the link.

Can't wait to hear tribal leaders opine whine about this. 

So, finally we can close the poll.

The poll asked readers how they would vote:

• the percent of readers who said they would grant the waiver - 49% (49.4%)
• the percent of readers who said they would not grant the waiver - 51% (50.6%)

I'll leave the poll up overnight just to confirm there really was a poll, but votes no longer count.