Misinformation about a possible change to the oil and gas project known as the Draco Pad has circulated in the Erie community.<\/p>\n
A Sept. 24 hearing is scheduled for the Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission to consider a request from SM Energy \u2014 the company at the helm of the Draco Pad \u2014 to remove a small amount of acreage from its drilling plan for the project. The company submitted that request in August 2025, months after the project got approval from the state commission.<\/p>\n
The amendment the hearing is expected to address is not directly connected to the pending sale of Erie\u2019s underground minerals to SM Energy<\/a>. The Town Council voted to approve that sale in late June.<\/p>\n The hearing concerns a request submitted nearly a year ago \u201cto modify the westernmost portion of its proposed drilling plan,\u201d town spokesperson Gabi Rae told the Daily Camera. \u201cThat request was filed well before the Town and the operator began discussing the recent Council-approved agreement.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA whole lot of people jumped to a whole lot of conclusions,\u201d she wrote in an email.<\/p>\n A post in an Erie Facebook group, made by a community member after the town issued an announcement about the hearing, said an amendment to Draco\u2019s drilling plan would \u201cexclude\u201d from the project the mineral rights Erie leaders agreed to sell.<\/p>\n The post also said an amendment to the drilling plan \u201cwill almost certainly mean that SM Energy will be backing out of the negotiated deal with Erie.\u201d<\/p>\n But ECMC spokesperson John Brown said Erie-owned mineral rights are still included in the drilling plan scheduled for review next month. And as of Tuesday morning, Erie officials said they had received no communication from SM Energy indicating the mineral rights deal is off.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can confirm that at this time, no such message has been relayed to us by SM Energy, the ECMC, or any other entity that may have knowledge or authority in this matter,\u201d Rae said.<\/p>\n The Facebook post had more than 70 comments as of Monday afternoon. By Tuesday morning, it had been edited and the ability to comment had been disabled.<\/p>\n Proposed Draco changes<\/p>\n Approval of a drilling plan, called a drilling and spacing unit \u2014 or DSU \u2014 is just one step in the state commission\u2019s regulatory process.<\/p>\n Before drilling can begin, an oil and gas operator must obtain multiple state approvals, including for a pooling application, according to Brown. A pooling application is the document that shows an operator has legal access to the underground minerals included within a drilling plan.<\/p>\n