We completed the survey phase of our evaluation of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Oil and Gas Drainage Program. The objective of our evaluation was to determine to what extent the BLM addressed onshore oil and gas drainage and what are the impacts of drainage.
We found the BLM opened numerous drainage cases during the years we evaluated and rarely pursued protective actions because drainage was not evident. Understanding the geology of where the oil and gas congregates and how it is extracted from a formation is a vital piece of information in identifying and determining if drainage is geologically possible. We were told geological reviews could be used earlier in the process to determine whether drainage in an area is even possible before a case is administratively screened. Based on our limited analysis and the interviews conducted, we learned that there may be room for efficiencies in BLM’s process if it performed geological reviews earlier in its process.