Johnson County Sees Oil Boom as Trump-Era Energy Push Clears the Way

Drilling rigs are humming again in Johnson County, where oil and gas operators say Wyoming’s friendly energy policies — combined with a Trump administration green light — are making the Powder River Basin one of the hottest places to drill, Casper Star Tribune reports.

“Johnson County is a good place to drill for oil and gas, because there’s a lot of proven reserves here,” said Howard Cooper, CEO of Three Crown Petroleum, which is currently boring a two-mile horizontal well in the Niobrara formation.

The company has three more wells underway in neighboring Campbell and Converse counties.

What makes Wyoming so attractive? Speed and simplicity. Cooper said his Johnson County project got a drilling permit in just two weeks — compared to a year-long slog in states like Colorado.

“You save significant amounts of money on permitting, so you can use that money for drilling,” he said.

Within a month of approval, his crews had the pad built, rigs on-site, and pipelines already hooked up.

As of mid-August, Wyoming had 13 active oil rigs — eight of them in the Powder River Basin. That’s nowhere near the 33 rigs before the pandemic, but experts say modern technology means you don’t need as many rigs to produce the same amount of oil and gas.

Still, long-term planning rules the industry.

“It’s not easy just to flip a switch,” said Ryan McConnaughey with the Petroleum Association of Wyoming.

Global oil markets, OPEC politics, weather patterns, and federal rules all factor into whether a company decides to drill.

Right now, the federal government is leaning hard toward fossil fuels. On his first day back in office, President Trump signed executive orders declaring a national energy emergency and fast-tracking fossil fuel development. The Bureau of Land Management is moving to lift coal leasing restrictions in the Powder River Basin and clear the way for more oil and gas permits.

That’s music to the ears of companies like Three Crown.

“Over the next four years, it will be much easier to work with the BLM,” Cooper said. “That’s going to help us as an independent oil and gas company when we’re applying for federal applications to drill.”

Trump’s budget package — dubbed the “Big Beautiful Bill” — also slashed royalty rates on federal oil and gas production from 16.67% to 12.5%, while scrapping fees companies pay to nominate land for leasing. Industry leaders say that kind of break helps offset the extra red tape that comes with drilling on federal lands.

But even with the federal government backing them, energy companies still battle lawsuits from environmental groups looking to block projects. McConnaughey said that kind of litigation can stall wells for years. Wyoming lawmakers are pushing reforms to put time limits on lawsuits, arguing companies need certainty before investing millions into drilling.

Despite the legal wrangling, industry leaders say the momentum is on their side. Courts recently tossed out a challenge to more than 4,000 drilling permits in Wyoming and New Mexico, calling the plaintiffs’ claims baseless.

For Johnson County, it all adds up to more rigs, more jobs, and more investment flowing into a region that has always bet big on oil and gas. As Cooper put it:

“This is the right place, at the right time, to drill.”