The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission has approved PDC Energy’s Kenosha and Broe developments’ permit applications. The Kenosha development, which encompasses 69 wells on three pads in rural Weld County, Colorado, further increases PDC’s permitted inventory by another rig year and solidifies drilling and completion activity well into 2024.
The Broe permit encompasses 30 wells in rural Weld County. The Broe plan was initiated by Great Western Petroleum, which was acquired by PDC in May 2022 and represents PDC’s first development plan approval on Great Western acreage. Combined with the Kenosha plan approval, PDC added 99 new wells to its inventory in June and will soon have more than 675 permits and drilled and uncompleted wells.
Both fields are in the greater Wattenberg area. The new permits add to an already-established multiyear inventory of projects in the DJ Basin. Kenosha is the second oil and gas development plan to be approved, and the company anticipates further approvals with its Guanella area plan and others.
PDC’s operations in the Wattenberg field are focused in the horizontal Niobrara and Codell plays. The Wattenberg represents PDC Energy’s largest asset with more than 85% of its 2021 production and 90% of its year-end 2021 proved reserves.