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Oil And Gas Producer Fined For Late Production Reports

The federal Office of Natural Resources Revenue, or ONRR, has fined a Wyoming oil and gas producer $204,362 for not submitting timely production reports for its federal leases. Matrix Production Company was issued two notices of noncompliance before ONRR levied the penalties. ONRR spokesman, Patrick Etchart, says the production reports are used to keep companies in check.   

“The production report is separate from the royalty reports the companies also submit, and we use that information historically in our auditing and compliance efforts to check what the companies paid for on royalties and we double check with the production reports to see if the volumes add up,” Etchart says.

He says the company was noncompliant for many leases and ONRR has “pages and pages of leases that were missing the production reports.”

The production reports were eventually submitted and Matrix continues to operate in the state. The company has over 200 producing wells in Wyoming with about half on federal land. Matrix did not return a call for comment.

Irina Zhorov is a reporter for Wyoming Public Radio. She earned her BA from the University of Pennsylvania and an MFA from the University of Wyoming. In between, she worked as a photographer and writer for Philadelphia-area and national publications. Her professional interests revolve around environmental and energy reporting and she's reported on mining issues from Wyoming, Mexico, and Bolivia. She's been supported by the Dick and Lynn Cheney Grant for International Study, the Eleanor K. Kambouris Grant, and the Social Justice Research Center Research Grant for her work on Bolivian mining and Uzbek alpinism. Her work has appeared on Voice of America, National Native News, and in Indian Country Today, among other publications.
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