Colorado Drillers Dodge $10 Billion-a-Year Threat to Output
- Citizen proposals didn’t get enough signatures, state says
- Synergy Resources jumped most in more than seven months
A contractor at an oil rig site in Fort Lupton, Colorado.
Photographer: Jamie Schwaberow/BloombergOil and natural gas explorers from Anadarko Petroleum Corp. to Synergy Resources Corp. have escaped a vote in Colorado that would have limited drilling and threatened to halt about $10 billion worth of oil and natural gas production a year.
A proposal known as Initiative 78, which would have restricted drilling near homes, fell about 21,000 valid signatures short of the total needed to qualify for a ballot vote, based on a projection in a statement from Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams. A measure allowing local governments to ban fracking also failed to attract enough valid signatures. Synergy, a Colorado oil and gas explorer, rose the most in more than seven months on the failed ballot initiatives.