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Articles written by Zak Sonntag


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  • Oil and gas producers notch a win in federal court

    Zak Sonntag, Casper Star-Tribune Via Wyoming News Exchange|Sep 19, 2024

    CASPER — Wyoming’s oil and gas producers have won a reprieve with a federal court injunction against the Bureau of Land Management’s methane regulation rule, stalling for now regulatory requirements that would have added millions of dollars in overhead for producers and threatened to force many of Wyoming’s small operators out of business, industry representatives say. ‘The left hand of the government does not know what the right hand of the government is doing’ The court declared the BLM’s “Waste Prevention Rule” — which tightens methane em...

  • Most rare earths on earth? 

    Zak Sonntag, Casper Star-Tribune Via Wyoming News Exchange|Dec 28, 2023

    CASPER — A mine exploration project in Halleck Creek was ranked as one of the top ten critical mineral sites on the planet after assay results earlier this year revealed exceptionally high levels of rare earth elements. But this month the project owners, American Rare Earths, U.S. subsidiary of an Australian-founded exploration company, have completed their full development drilling campaign, and the new assay results suggest that soon this Albany County mine will be ranked number one. Mineral testing of samples from Overton Mountain r...

  • Complaints in coal country 

    Zak Sonntag, Casper Star-Tribune Via Wyoming News Exchange|Nov 30, 2023

    CASPER — Wyoming’s Black Butte Mine in January 2021 applied to add federal coal reserves at its Sweetwater County operations, which supplies the Jim Bridger Power Plant and a sizable share of baseload thermal energy throughout the West. It was a run-of-the-mill application that state regulators expected to be approved smoothly. Instead, it has become mired in a nightmarishly tedious approval process that’s brought state leaders to their wits’ end. Concerns at the Black Butte Mine are among a host of recent complaints coming out of coal country...