Top executive in Colorado leaves state’s largest oil and gas company
The top executive in Colorado for the state’s biggest oil and gas company is no longer employed there, one of a string of three recent high-level departures from Anadarko Petroleum Corp..
A. Scott Moore, the former senior vice president for midstream and marketing operations for Anadarko, is no longer working for the Houston-based company, a spokesperson confirmed Wednesday.
News of Moore’s departure was first reported by the Denver Business Journal. He is the third senior Colorado-linked executive to leave Anadarko since early October.
His position will be filled on an interim basis by Danny Hart, Anadarko’s vice president of U.S. onshore development, the spokesperson said. The spokesperson would not say when Moore’s ties to the company had been severed or what the reasons were for his departure.
Anadarko has drilled heavily in the areas north and east of Denver, where booming residential development also is occurring. The pace of new housing construction has sparked conflicts over drilling operations. Clashes between homeowners and drillers became more pronounced after a fatal April 17, 2017, explosion at a house near an Anadarko well in Firestone that killed two men and severely injured a woman. State officials expanded pipeline regulations after the blast. A federal investigation is still underway into the cause.
Anadarko said Tuesday in a statement on its website that it has reactivated at least 1,350 of more than 3,000 wells it shut down after the accident. The company said it has plugged and abandoned approximately 600 wells, with the remainder awaiting further evaluation, retro-fit equipment installation or abandonment.
Moore’s exit from Anadarko follows the recent departures of two other top executives in Colorado. Brad Holly, who oversaw Anadarko’s Rocky Mountain operations from 2013 to 2017, left Anadarko in October.
He now is president and CEO of Denver-based Whiting Petroleum Corp.
Craig Walters, who was Anadarko’s Denver-based vice president for U.S. onshore operations services, left Anadarko in November.
He is now chief operating officer and executive vice president at Denverbased Jagged Peak Energy Inc.