IPANM is not afraid to take strong stances on many current issues threatening our industry. We have to! Seemingly minor changes to regulations or rules can have a major impact on the financial solvency of our small oil & gas producers. While we will never compromise on our duties to protect human health, fresh water and the environment in our daily activities, we will fight unnecessary government overreach when new regulatory proposals are not based on sound science and do little to protect the environment.
Below, we’ve identified serious issues facing our producers. Please click on the corresponding button to learn more about each issue and IPANM’s stance on the issue. (Note: Some of this content may be restricted for members only. To access this exclusive content, please join our association!)
IPANM (Sept. 10, 2022) – IPANM is proud to announce the winners of the 2022 IPANM Wildlife in the Oilfield Photo Contest! This year’s contest marked the 18th year IPANM has proudly hosted this contest which promotes wildlife using manmade structures in the oilfield to flourish!
IPANM would like to announce this year’s 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Place photos:
In third place with a $500 prize, coming in with this photo of entitled “Snake Wrap”…. please join me in congratulating Ryan Davis of Merrion Oil & Gas who took this photo in the dead of winter. Quite a surprise, as you can imagine, when we went out a site visit and found this rattler snuggling around a pipe for warmth.
In second place, a covey (kuhv-EE) of Northern Bobwhite birds near a wellsites, hanging out and popping their heads up just to see what’s going on. Congratulations to Joseph Richards who submitted this shot, and wins $750. A couple of quick facts about Northern Bobwhites: they travel in packs known as “coveys” and run across the ground from the shelter of one shrubby patch to another. When they are flushed, they explode into flight with quick wingbeats and then duck into the nearest cover.
And, this year’s winner of the 2022 Wildlife in the Oilfield contest and the $1000 prize is….Renae Cox, who submitted a photo of a pack of mule deer as they traverse near a tank battery. Mule deer frequently use oilfield equipment for shelter and warmth, especially during wintertime.
IPANM had terrific submissions this past year. All of the photos were distributed to our Board of Directors without knowledge of who submitted them. We did have Board members who submitted photos this year, and they were not allowed to vote. Each Board member ranked their top 5 photos, and the cumulative rankings were used to tabulate our top three winners.
For a little history, When the Alaskan pipeline was being built, environmentalists bemoaned the fate of the caribou saying the animals would suffer immensely. Well, as we know, the exact opposite happened. In Prudhoe Bay, the number of caribou has quintupled since production began in early 1978. The caribou often use the oil field equipment and the adjoining Alaskan pipeline for a windbreak and warmth.
In New Mexico oil fields, many species of wildlife also use equipment in a productive manner. Birds will use elevated surfaces as foundations for nests. Deer, like caribou, use the equipment for a windbreak and warmth.
Since 2004, IPANM’s has amassed a library of over 1500 photos that demonstrate wildlife adapting to manmade changes in their environment. In fact, the Wildlife-in-the-Oilfield is one of the top three webpages for hits on our website…consistently…every year.
New York Post (Sept. 6, 2022) – It’s easy to believe that life on Earth is getting ever-worse. The media highlight one catastrophe after another and make terrifying predictions. With a torrent of doom and gloom about climate change and the environment, it’s understandable why many people — especially the young — genuinely believe the world is about to end.
The fact is that while problems remain, the world is in fact getting better. We just rarely hear it.
We are incessantly told about disasters, whether it is the latest heatwave, flood, wildfire or storm. Yet the data overwhelmingly shows that over the past century, people have become much, much safer from all these weather events. Indeed, in the 1920s, around half a million people were killed by weather disasters, whereas in the last decade the death-toll averaged around 18,000. This year, just like 2020 and 2021, is tracking below that. Why? Because when people get richer, they get more resilient.
George Sharpe of Merrion Oil & Gas (Sept. 1, 2022) – The State of New Mexico and the Biden Administration are seeking to develop Western New Mexico & the Four Corners area into a “Hydrogen Hub” to encourage the development of hydrogen energy. There are different ways to produce hydrogen, including “blue” hydrogen and “green” hydrogen. There’s also a lot of debate over the incentives to attract hydrogen developers to New Mexico. It’s a complex topic, but Merrion Oil & Gas’s George Sharpe has released an outstanding video to help understand hydrogen and its many aspects related to energy production. Thanks to George for sharing!
The Green War on the REAL Clean Energy Radical environmentalists fight against the very technologies that would cut carbon emissions.
Editor’s Note: The following article is hardly an endorsement of fossil fuels, but the points made underscore the current lunacy driving state and federal governments to establish energy policies that make environmental problems worse.
City Journal Magazine (August 15, 2022) – Excerpts from the linked article below:
“Green elites want to upend the lives of billions but show surprisingly little interest in whether their programs work. In some parts of the world, the climate lobby has already managed to enact policies that raise prices, hinder growth, and promote political instability—all while achieving only marginal reductions in emissions.”
“The problem starts with the movement’s blanket opposition to fossil fuels. For example, most environmentalists viscerally oppose fracking and natural-gas pipelines. The Biden administration moved to curtail U.S. gas drilling within days of taking office (one reason U.S. gas prices have roughly tripled since Biden became president). But in fact, since natural gas emits nearly 50 percent less carbon dioxide than coal, it is one of our best tools to bring down emissions in the short term, while also benefiting the economy. Alex Trembath, deputy director of the Breakthrough Institute, writes: “The U.S. fracking boom of 2008 onward tempered inflation, created hundreds of thousands of jobs during the worst recession in a century, and, yes, reduced carbon emissions by displacing much dirtier coal-fired power.”
“The zero-carbon energy sources they demand can take a terrible toll on the wildlife and open spaces they love. California’s iconic Altamont Pass wind farm, for example, kills thousands of birds yearly, including an estimated 75 to 110 golden eagles. Solar farms threaten endangered desert tortoises and other wildlife. Because of their low energy density, wind and solar developments require enormous tracts of land, compared with other energy sources. New York’s now-shuttered Indian Point nuclear power plant sits on just 240 acres. Replacing its power entirely with wind power would require more than 500 square miles of turbines. That’s a massive amount of land and habitat lost to energy production.”
IPANM (August 14, 2022) – At a time when New Mexicans are getting slammed with high gasoline prices, higher utility rates, and escalating inflation, the state has been given a unique opportunity to lead the country out of troubled times by safely producing more oil and natural gas, which will drive down the price of energy and decrease dependence on foreign sources of energy that are unquestionably worse for the environment.
Our industry is equally committed to reducing emissions, which is why New Mexico’s oil and gas producers are already using the most advanced technologies in the world to reduce the environmental impacts of development.
To further these efforts, members of the Independent Petroleum Association of New Mexico openly engaged in the state’s Methane Advisory Panel over the past few years with a genuine desire to develop balanced state emissions rules targeting ozone precursors. We worked toward a rule that would not only reduce emissions but also adhere to an early commitment the New Mexico Environment Department made to IPANM to “not create a rule that targets low emitters.”
The Environment Department’s original draft rule released in July of 2020 was supported by IPANM. Though it would certainly increase operating costs, it was crafted to achieve major emission reductions while ensuring operational feasibility for small, independent producers. A key provision in the original draft was an important low-emission exemption to allow low-producing wells to safely operate, as these wells have less potential to emit. But, environmental groups protested and applied considerable pressure on the Environment Department to create “the strictest methane rule in America.”
In May of 2021, the original draft was discarded. The department released a new rule contrived behind closed doors devoid of reason or noble purpose. The administration substituted the low-producing, emissions-based threshold with an exemption scheme cynically designed to never be achieved that will intentionally force at least hundreds, if not thousands, of New Mexico wells to be plugged prematurely. Producers are exempt if they have less than 10 employees and a gross income of less than $250,000 a year. Few, if any, operators will ever qualify. The substituted exemption ignores the already existing New Mexico code which defines small businesses as less than 50 employees. Furthermore, nearly all viable small operators need to generate the gross income threshold annually simply to cover their business costs.
A final most troubling aspect of this rule is the lack of proper modeling tied to the costly upgrades required on existing low-producing, low-emitting wells. The combined rule requirements targeting these wells will have little to no known impact on the reduction of ozone precursors. For the state administration to tinker with the largest economic driver in the state without such consideration is unacceptable.
IPANM has no choice but to appeal the Ozone Precursor Rule. We do so as a last resort after years of good-faith effort on our part to help the state develop a reasonable rule. We sincerely hope the Environment Department will reconsider the adopted rule, hold off on implementation, and re-petition the Environmental Improvement Board to adopt a fair, balanced rule. IPANM supports emissions reductions, but the current rule’s regulatory overreach disproportionately restricts development from small, independent producers.
The Independent Petroleum Association of New Mexico represents hundreds of independent oil and gas operators. Many are small, multigenerational New Mexico-based family operators.
ABQ Journal (August 7, 2022) – The Independent Petroleum Association of New Mexico filed a legal appeal Friday challenging new state regulations aimed at reducing ozone pollution in the oil and gas industry.
New Mexico’s Environmental Improvement Board adopted the new rules in April and they went into effect officially on Friday.
Oil and gas operators in high-ozone counties must now have emissions data certified by an engineer.
IPANM executive director Jim Winchester said the rule contains provisions that will force companies to plug productive wells and “inflict economic hardship” on residents.
“At a time when the public supports responsible domestic production to reduce gasoline prices and a decrease in our dependency on foreign sources of energy that are unquestionably worse for the environment, IPANM strongly feels this is the wrong rule at the wrong time,” he said.
IPANM(August 5, 2022) – At 5 p.m. MT today, the Independent Petroleum Association of New Mexico (IPANM) filed a Notice of Appeal to legally challenge the Environmental Improvement Board’s adopted Ozone Precursor Rule.
The following statement has been released by Jim Winchester, Executive Director of the Independent Petroleum Association of New Mexico, regarding IPANM’s filing an appeal to the Ozone Precursor Rule.
“At a time when the public supports responsible domestic production to reduce gasoline prices and a decrease in our dependency on foreign sources of energy that are unquestionably worse for the environment, IPANM strongly feels this is the wrong rule at the wrong time. While IPANM does support a fair and balanced Ozone Precursor regulation, we have no choice but to appeal this version of the rule that will force operators to plug still-productive wells and will inflict economic hardship on New Mexicans with little to no gain for the environment.”
Today’s filing with the New Mexico State Court of Appeals against the Environmental Improvement Board will be followed by technical arguments to be filed by IPANM within 30 days that will identify the specific provisions to be challenged. With the matter now in the court, IPANM will not comment on the specifics of the pending objections other than to point to our concerns raised throughout the 3-year process that were not included in the New Mexico Environment Department’s final draft rule submitted to the EIB.
–Jim Winchester
Executive Director, Independent Petroleum Association of New Mexico
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Mike Rowe Facebook Post (June 26, 2022) – IPANM appreciates the following Q & A posted by “Dirty Jobs” Host Mike Rowe.
Hobbs Sun (June 26, 2022) by IPANM Executive Director Jim Winchester –
Thanks to the thousands of hardworking men and women working in the oil & gas industry in the New Mexico Permian Basin, our great state is well positioned to continue to be an energy leader in America. We’re now #2 in oil production and #8 in natural gas production of all fifty states. This directly translates into revenues that are used to improve all walks of life in New Mexico. So, to those industry workers and to the many others who support our industry in Hobbs and SE New Mexico, we thank you for your support!
