In materials filed with the Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission (ECMC) on August 28, 2026, Extraction Oil & Gas (a wholly owned subsidiary of SM Energy) pivoted its drilling plans for the Draco Oil and Gas Development Plan (OGDP) to avoid minerals owned by the Town of Erie, and to include an additional DSU south of the proposed pad, which lies entirely underneath the Front Range Landfill in Erie, Colorado.
In its application materials (available on the ECMC Hearings eFiling System under Docket Number 260800225, Extraction noted:
The requested amendments are necessary because changes in circumstances relating to local government owned unleased minerals in the existing Draco spacing unit will, absent the requested amendments, prohibit Extraction from complying with the timing specifications in the Draco OGDP Order.
Issues Raised
Some of the issues raised by this amended drilling plan:
- Extraction agreed to plug and abandon a number of wells in Boulder County that now lie outside of the DSU; will they ask to be released from that obligation?
- The Town of Erie had applied for “affected person” status in the October 21 hearing; since that docket number has been removed from consideration, what will the Town now do?
- The Form 2A has approval for up to 26 wells; they’ll have to substantially alter the drilling plan to accommodate additional wellbores for DSU 2. We predict they’ll reduce the density of wells on DSU 1 and utilize u-turn wellbores for DSU 2, as has been done at other square-shaped DSUs in the Denver-Julesburg Basin (see Noble #3N68W5 wellbore map below).
We’ve updated our Draco map with this new information!