Denver-based HRM Resources acted as a middleman, moving wells from larger companies to smaller ones that went bankrupt, lawsuit says

A rusting orphan well sits at the end of Cindy McCormick’s driveway. She passes it when she goes out and when she comes home — a horsehead pump jack, a dilapidated shed, big weather-stained tanks and a pit.

The old oil and gas site has become a dumping ground attracting mattresses, couches and an old foosball table. The sign on the well pad located in unincorporated Adams County identifies the owner as Painted Pegasus Petroleum LLC — a bankrupt Texas company.

It is just one orphan well among an estimated 1,800 in Colorado, but a lawsuit filed in Adams County District Court contends it is part of a large, fraudulent scheme to dump old, played-out wells onto the state.

  • varoth
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    6711 months ago

    Oil companies are some of the scummiest scumbags there are. I hate them.

    • @Viking_Hippie
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      3111 months ago

      Like billionaires, the fact that they still exist at all is a colossal failure of political policy. And also like billionaires, the reason is that corruption is baked into the system and they hand out hefty legal bribes to politicians.

      • Flying Squid
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        711 months ago

        They result in billionaires. Oil investments are pretty safe for the foreseeable future sadly.

    • @halcyoncmdr
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      1311 months ago

      And yet we spend billions of dollars subsidizing them every year.

      • DominusOfMegadeus
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        11 months ago

        If Congress want to go ahead and vote themselves, say, a double salary raise, in exchange for no longer subsidizing any oil company anywhere for the rest of time, I am OK with that.

    • admiralteal
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      111 months ago

      They’ve known for at least 50 years that their product is destroying the planet.

      Yet the plundering never stops.

      It is not possible to be running an oil company ethically at this point. If you’re working in the industry, you’re one of the baddies.