Company: PED
Filing Date: 2025-10-29
Form Type: 10-K/A
Source: 0001654954-25-012328
Chunk: 49

Company: PEDEVCO CORP
Filing Date: 2025-10-29
Form: 10-K/A
Chunk 49
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 Colorado state ballot making it relatively more difficult to place an initiative on the state ballot was passed by the voters. As a result, there are more stringent procedures now in place for placing an initiative on a state ballot. In addition to state laws, local land use restrictions may restrict drilling or the hydraulic fracturing process and cities may adopt local ordinances allowing hydraulic fracturing activities within their jurisdictions but regulating the time, place and manner of those activities.

For example, on November 6, 2018, registered voters in the State of Colorado cast their ballots and rejected Proposition 112 (“Prop. 112”), with 55% of ballots cast against the measure. Prop. 112 would have created a rigid 2,500-foot setback from oil and gas facilities to the nearest occupied structure and other “vulnerable areas,” which included parks, ball fields, open space, streams, lakes and intermittent streams. It would have dramatically increased the amount of surface area off-limits to new energy development by 26 times and put 94% of private land in the top five oil and gas producing counties in the State of Colorado off-limits to new development. It is possible that future ballot initiatives will be proposed that could limit the areas of the state in which drilling would be permitted to occur or otherwise impose increased regulations on our industry.

Passed in Colorado in 2019, SB 19-181 gives local governmental authorities increased authority to regulate oil and gas development. The authors of the legislation were clear that SB 19-181 was not intended to allow an outright ban on oil and gas development. However, anti-industry activists in Longmont, Colorado, have argued in court that SB 19-181 permits a local governmental authority to impose such a ban. We primarily operate in the rural areas of the Wattenberg Field in Weld and Morgan Counties, jurisdictions in which there has historically been significant support for the oil and gas industry.

In addition, on September 28, 2020, the COGCC (now the ECMC) voted in favor of a preliminary approval establishing a new 2,000-foot setback rule from buildings for drilling and fracturing operations statewide, increasing the previous 500-foot setback rule, which rule became effective January 1, 2021, and could likewise make it more difficult for us to undertake oil and gas development activities in Colorado, although given the distance of most of our current leases from buildings in Colorado, these setback rules have not yet had a significant impact on our operations, but may impact future development if we seek