Today, the Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC) hosted a virtual open meeting where the commissioners discussed common carrier pipeline and refinery storage capacity, the report produced by the Blue Ribbon Task Force for Oil Economic Recovery, and proration.

In response to Chairman Christian’s request at the April 21st Open Meeting, the RRC received reports from 19 refineries and 70 common carrier pipelines regarding their unfilled storage capacity figures. The refineries reported having 18,414,733 barrels capacity remaining and the pipelines reported having 52,770,925 barrels of capacity remaining.

Oklahoma oil regulators on Tuesday agreed to meet on May 11 to hear from state energy producers urging officials to use their authority to limit crude output in times of economic hardship.

The Oklahoma Energy Producers Alliance, along with other small producers, last week formally asked the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, which regulates the state’s oil and gas industry, to consider that low oil prices had made current production a waste of the state’s resources.

U.S. crude futures were trading around $20.75 a barrel on Tuesday, off more than 60% from the start of the year as the coronavirus pandemic eroded demand. Tuesday’s price fell about 8% despite a deal this week by major producers to curb global output.

Texas regulators on Tuesday heard similar arguments from dozens of oil producers, pipeline companies and others. Shale producers Pioneer Natural Resources and Parsley Energy proposed a 20% cut, drawing opposition from large oil companies including Exxon Mobil and Occidental Petroleum Corp.

Reporting by Liz Hampton; Editing by Tom Brown

See article here.

PRESS RELEASE — Apr 21, 2020

Today, the Texas School Land Board unanimously approved three policies to work with operators within the constraints of our statutory authority, while maintaining our fiduciary duty to the school children of Texas to generate the highest revenues possible for the Permanent School Fund.

The policies delegates the Land Commissioner the authority to grant up to a six-month extension on all drilling commitments, when it’s deemed to be in the state’s best interest, made by lessees of permanent school fund property during 2020, and a 90-day tolling on calculations for enforcing lease terminations for halting of production or failure to produce in paying quantities. Additional actions include adopting a policy addressing a waiver of penalties and interest on late royalty payments submitted from April 1, 2020 through June 30, 2020 in light of the current oil and gas crisis facing the nation.

Today, the Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC) continued discussion on the issue of proration, ongoing relief initiatives of the agency, and the formation of a Blue Ribbon Task Force for oil economic recovery.

Chairman Christian kicked off the discussion by inviting RRC Executive Director Wei Wang to discuss the various relief and flexibility initiatives that the agency has provided to our state's oil and gas operators, including deadline extensions for certain requirements/filings, online processing and electronic submissions, and enforcement discretions and waiver considerations. You can view the discussion here (34:30-40:03). A full list of our notice to operators can be found here.