Landowners east of Cheyenne say a major oil and gas firm is developing a monopoly in their county, and they have asked state regulators to put a stop to it by denying thousands of permits to drill proposed by Anadarko Petroleum.
Anadarko tried to have the protests dismissed by the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission on Tuesday, disputing a number of the landowners’ assumptions, but the board agreed to allow a hearing at a future date for landowners to make their case.
“That does not mean, necessarily, that I am swayed,” Commissioner Bridget Hill, director of the Wyoming Office of State Lands and Investments, told the landowners’ counsel, Kris Koski. Koski is a University of Wyoming lecturer and a lawyer with Long, Reimer, Winegar, Beppler in Cheyenne.