"AOGCC"

This month, the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission started requiring oil and gas companies to put up substantially higher bonds to cover the wells they’ve drilled. But a different state agency is criticizing the new law.

The report supports some, but not all, of the governor’s charges against the chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, former Democratic state Sen. Hollis French.

A two-page letter from Dunleavy last month charges French with “neglect of duty and misconduct,” and levies five charges to justify the governor’s bid to remove French from chairmanship of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.

The state is proposing a $380,000 fine for Alaska Native corporation Ahtna, Inc., for safety violations at a gas well near Glennallen.

French, who served on the commission since July, was confirmed by a 35 to 24 vote.

After investigating the incident, AOGCC took the highly unusual step of shutting down all four of Hilcorp’s rigs operating on existing wells in the state for nearly a month.

A state agency today announced it is fining an oil and gas company that operates in Cook Inlet for major safety violations.

The state agency that oversees oil and gas drilling is proposing a ten-day comment period for applications to use hydraulic fracturing on an oil or gas well. The proposal falls in between what environmental groups and the industry say is sufficient opportunity for public input before a well can be fracked in Alaska.

As the cold winter months hit the North Slope, the BLM heads out to plug old wells in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, hoping the process goes more smoothly this time around.

Hollis French, a Democrat from Anchorage, served in the Alaska Senate for 12 years. Now he’ll oversee regulation of the state’s oil and gas industry.