Oil, gas company faces $1.8M fine. Next up, can it keep operating in Colorado?

A Denver lipid and state institution is facing astir $1.8 cardinal successful penalties and the anticipation of losing its quality to run successful Colorado aft authorities regulators decided it violated respective authorities regulations.

Next, the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission volition determine if K.P. Kauffman Co. engaged successful a signifier of violations. A proceeding is for Sept. 20-21, during which the COGCC volition determine whether to prohibit the institution from receiving immoderate caller permits.

K.P. Kauffman tin entreaty the decision.

The COGCC wrapped up respective days of hearings Monday and announced a last penalty. The committee unit had recommended fining K.P. Kauffman $3.7 million.

But the COGCC dismissed immoderate alleged violations due to the fact that the statute of limitations had expired and consolidated others. In immoderate cases, the commissioners decided the unit didn’t supply capable evidence.

The COGCC determined that K.P. Kauffman violated rules connected reporting spills and the presumption of flowlines, which transportation lipid and state from a good to different equipment, and letting the bureau cognize what it was doing to close problems. The commissioners agreed with the staff’s allegations that the institution missed deadlines connected filing cleanup plans.

K.P. Kauffman besides improperly disposed of lipid and state wasted connected a tract and adjacent a pond and wetlands. The company’s lawyers said the tract belonged to K.P. Kauffman.

The institution is an “unreliable, incapable and impactful” operator, said Caitlin Stafford,an adjunct lawyer wide representing the COGCC staff.

John Jacus, an lawyer representing K.P. Kauffman, said the institution has changed its policies and practices. During the hearings, helium contended the COGCC unit conflated missing deadlines for filing reports with existent threats to nationalist wellness and information and the environment.

In the lawsuit of violations involving the cleanup of a radical of batteries, the institution encountered “significant historical contamination” from erstwhile owners, K.P. Kauffman lawyers said. That analyzable and delayed the work, they said.

K.P. Kauffman, a family-owned business, has astir 1,200 lipid and state wells. Most of those are successful Weld County.