Category: Draco

Posted on

Opening Pandora’s Box: The Draco Debacle

After 8 hours of testimony and deliberations over two days last week, the Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission (ECMC) voted unanimously on Friday to indefinitely stay a decision on the Draco Oil & Gas Development Plan (OGDP) in unincorporated Weld County, less than 500 feet outside of the Town of Erie.

The proposed Draco wellbores extend over 5 miles west through Erie and into Boulder County, and will hydraulically fracture and extract minerals underneath 4,500 homes. These wellbores also threaten 72 existing wells in the drilling & spacing unit (DSU) and many more nearby, prompting concern, outrage, and action from local residents. The Draco stay decision is cause to celebrate … right? Right?

Continue reading “Opening Pandora’s Box: The Draco Debacle”
Posted on

Extreme Reach Wellbores Require Extreme Water Use

Or, the march to the first billion gallon frac pad in Colorado

To understand the massive quantities of water that may be consumed to hydraulically fracture the 26 extreme reach wellbores at Draco, let’s look at the water used by the 394 hydraulic fracturing treatments logged thus far in 2024 to FracFocus, courtesy of the data wizards at Open FF who have made extensive inroads to sanitize and extend the FracFocus data.

Actual Water Use is Twice Estimated for Extreme Reach Wellbores

A detail view of the main graph below showing the hydraulic fracturing treatments at the Blue and Sky Ranch pads in Adams and Arapahoe Counties, respectively. The median wellbore length for these data is 5.43 miles, with a median 44.79 MM gallons of water consumed.

Let’s start with the upper extremes, as shown in the graph above. From the Cumulative Impacts analysis for the Blue Pad in Adams County, Crestone estimated they would consume between 102.9 and 147 million gallons of water to frac the 7 wells at Blue.

Crestone Peak Resources used a median of 47.7 million gallons of water per well and permanently poisoned 304 million gallons of water, more than twice their upper estimate!

Continue reading “Extreme Reach Wellbores Require Extreme Water Use”
Posted on

My, how you’ve grown! An investigation of wellbore lengths.

In the face of unprecedented 5 mile laterals proposed by Extraction for the Draco Pad, it’s an appropriate time to analyze the maximum measured depths as reported to the ECMC for wells in Colorado to answer the question, “Have 5 mile laterals ever been drilled in Colorado before?” Let’s not bury the lead; according to the data reported to the ECMC, the answer is a resounding NO!

The longest laterals we’ve ever seen in Colorado are 4 miles long; the vast majority are less than 3 miles. The 5 mile laterals proposed at Draco are 25% longer than the longest laterals ever drilled in Colorado, and the proposed wellbores are 70% longer than any wells completed before 2024.

Christiaan van Woudenberg, Erie Protectors
Continue reading “My, how you’ve grown! An investigation of wellbore lengths.”
Posted on

Draco OGDP Cumulative Impacts Analysis

Now that the Draco OGDP application has been deemed complete by the ECMC, the documents submitted with the application are available to view/download. Here, we’re taking an opportunity to analyze the submitted Form 2B Cumulative Impacts Data Identification Form and share some new information.

  • Extraction plans to spend 9 weeks constructing the location, 18 weeks to drill the wells, and 23 weeks to complete the wells for Draco, for a total of 50 weeks of pre-production activities, assuming two concurrent electric drilling rigs will be used. The wells will be in production for 20 years.
  • The operator estimates 158,125 diesel vehicle miles will be driven before the wells are put into production to deliver sand, pipe, and other materials to the site.
  • The project will use 3.27 million pounds of proppant/sand during completions activities.
  • They plan to use 12,885,000 barrels of water to frack the 26 wells at Draco, for a total of 541 million gallons of water and an average of 20.8 million gallons per well.
  • They will not be recycling produced water because “the infrastructure necessary to reuse or recycle water does not exist in this area.”
  • Extraction plans to plug and abandon 22 wells at 18 locations, as well as removing 24 oil tanks and 13 produced water tanks.
Continue reading “Draco OGDP Cumulative Impacts Analysis”
Posted on

Draco OGDP Information Session

Thank you for joining us at the Erie Community Library on June 12th from 5:00 to 7:00 for an information and question & answer session about the Draco Oil & Gas Development Plan (OGDP). We had over 50 people attend! Community activists, local elected officials, and other knowledgeable experts were on hand to answer your questions about this large-scale oil & gas development plan that affects neighborhoods in Erie, Colorado.

Calls to Action

Quick Links

Draco Drilling & Spacing Unit (DSU) Map

Well locations with potentially interfering wells in producing or shut-in state are identified in red circles with dotted red lines.

This map depicts the existing oil & gas infrastructure in and around the proposed drilling and spacing unit (DSU) for the Draco Oil and Gas Development Plan (OGPD). The well pad for the proposed 26 wells is several miles east of the DSU, just north of the Crestone Hub at CR 6 and CR 7 in unincorporated Weld County.

Continue reading “Draco Drilling & Spacing Unit (DSU) Map”
Posted on

Draco FAQ

We’ll be updating this FAQ as we get additional information from the various involved parties. Where possible, links to additional/source material have been provided.

Where to Start

  1. Read through the session materials for the Draco OGDP information session, which includes a brief presentation and a session transcript of a comprehensive April 16, 2024 Erie Town Council Study Session where David Frank briefed the council members about the Draco project.
  2. Look at the Draco Drilling & Spacing Unit Map to see how you may be impacted.
What is fracking?

From the NRDC:

“Modern high-volume hydraulic fracturing is a technique used to enable the extraction of natural gas or oil from shale and other forms of “tight” rock (in other words, impermeable rock formations that lock in oil and gas and make fossil fuel production difficult). Large quantities of water, chemicals, and sand are blasted into these formations at pressures high enough to crack the rock, allowing the once-trapped gas and oil to flow to the surface.”

For more information, visit:
Hydraulic Fracturing 101 at Earthworks.org
Fracking 101 at the NRDC (the Natural Resources Defense Council)

Where is the Draco pad?

The proposed Draco pad is located northwest of CR 6 and CR 7 at the Crestone Hub. View on Google Maps.

A map graphic showing the proposed location of the Draco pad at the Crestone Hub off CR 6 and CR 7 near Erie, Colorado.
Where can I get details on the Oil & Gas Development Plan (OGDP) at the Energy & Carbon Commission (ECMC)?

The Draco OGDP is scheduled for August 28, 2024 at 9:00am at the ECMC building in Denver. The Form 2A and 2C have passed completeness review.

Continue reading “Draco FAQ”