Many companies have been using secondary and tertiary recovery methods in Osage County for years, Hendricks admits. The main fields that have been the most prolific have been water-flooded since the 1950s. The tertiary recovery procedures have been successful up here, and people have gotten quite a bit of oil from these expanded projects. Hendricks added that many companies are going back into old areas and re-opening plugged wells to use the new recovery methods in gathering the oil. As for the higher royalties, the tribe did announce it would be raising the minimum bid allowable at the Feb. 17 sale and the royalties have been increaed to 18.75 percent.
Many companies encounter problems in the rules, which vary from standard state regulations.
We all get together and work it all out. Jack Shoemake said. Our minerals branch needs to be beefed up with additional personnel in order to make sure everything is being done right. If their recommendations go through, we could increase our field staff from five to 18. But no matter if the recommendations are approved or not, apparently Osage County will continued to be drilled at the same fast pace set over the past few years, Barker indicated.