Friday, November 29, 2013

Conflict of Interest? We Need Answers

The City of Denton is currently in a period of negotiation with EagleRidge Energy. One of the architects of this deal is City Councilmember James King. Claims have recently been made that Mr. King owns minerals on wells operated by EagleRidge. These photographs would seem to corroborate those claims.

 




We need Mr. King to publically address this issue. Does he own mineral rights on wells operated by Eagleridge Energy? If so, how much does he make and how much could he stand to make in the future if EagleRidge fares well? Why has he not recused himself from policy decisions pertaining to EagleRidge?
We deserve answers to these questions. It is important for him to recognize that even apparent conflicts of interest can be a problem, because they can undermine trust in government and the legitimacy of its authority.
Mr. King: Please clue us in.

4 comments:

  1. Wow. It's always prudent for a city official to recuse himself or herself to prevent any possibility of a conflict of interest. For example, the current Mayor of Grand Prairie (and when he was city council rep for 10 years) always recused himself from gas drilling votes. He has shale gas wells on his property. Maybe Denton has a special rule that makes it alright to have such egregious conflicts of interest.

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  2. I know the Railroad Commission website can be tricky to navigate, but I can't seem to locate the P-12 for these particular units.

    P-12 Sample Form

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  3. There will be no Pooled Unit(s) for these wells. P-12s are for pooled units. They are not for individual leases when one group or family owns the mineral interest. These two wells pictured in the blog post are on 43.8 acres according to the drilling permits for both wells. You can look them up via their API#s more easily.

    They are: API #12100718 and API #12131239 . Both wells are vertical gas wells and were drilled originally by the R.L. Adkins Corp. The operator changed to Eagleridge sometime in late 2010. There shows to be an "et. al." but no full name except T.W. King.

    Click here to see the Completion Paperwork for API #42-12131239 RRC ID and Lease #190786

    Oh, click here for production data for this one well. Scroll through all the 15 pages from 2001 through Sept. 2013.

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  4. Let's think about this! Mr. King is receiving money for an older well, so it would actually be better for him if this well went away & he could sign a new lease at current rates. So by voting "for" Eagleridge" he is really allowing his lease to continue which is not in his best interest. Same thing for beefing up the drilling rules. By voting "against" tougher rules he is helping perpetuate his bad lease, so it is in his best interest to vote for tougher rules!

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