The federal government is going after a now-defunct Wyoming energy company for failing to document and pay royalties on the gas it had been extracting.
The Department of the Interior wants High Plains Gas to pay $6.9 million dollars in outstanding royalties on gas production. The company's website lists a Gillette address but the Wyoming Oil and Gas Commission considers High Plains Gas to be a "non-existent company." In November, Wyoming regulators seized over 2,000 of the company's idle coal bed methane wells after it failed to meet the state’s bonding requirement used to plug them up.
Wyoming's coal bed methane gas industry was booming in the early 2000's but it has since dried up thanks to low natural gas prices. For Inside energy, I’m Leigh Paterson.