Famed New York Yankee catcher Yogi Berra once quipped that “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” This Yogi-ism is a pretty apt description of the situation surrounding the oil and gas industry in Colorado. The exact outlook for the region in terms of oil and gas production is cloudy, but none of it looks very good.
Producers and midstream operators have been investing heavily in the D-J Basin for the past 18 years. This level of activity has seen Colorado become the sixth-largest oil producer in the country, hitting a record 450,000 barrels per day (bbl/d) in April 2018. The state is also the eighth-largest natural gas producer in the U.S.
However, the region is facing several headwinds when it comes to maintaining this growth. The first of these is the increasing likelihood that SB19-181 passes and the other is the strength of other domestic oil and gas plays.
