A prominent Greeley family business that sold 93% of its oil and gas assets in west Greeley to a Denver company in 2014 has filed a complaint of civil theft of almost $80 million in Weld District Court, claiming a new buyer has ignored existing compensation and use agreements.

Mineral Resources Inc., Richmark Real Estate Partners and Richmark Energy Partners filed a claim July 30 in Weld District Court against Denver-based PDC Energy for breach of contract and civil theft.

In the complaint, Richmark claims that when PDC acquired assets that Mineral Resources had conveyed to Extraction Oil and Gas, the original use and compensation agreements came with it: For each well drilled from the original assets, Mineral Resources would be compensated $10,000, plus 2% of each well’s gross proceeds.

That would honor the original use agreement with Extraction, which sold its Greeley assets to PDC in 2022.

As of July 20, the complaint states, PDC owes Richmark $79.5 million. “The exact amount is ascertainable but increases each month as the wells continue to produce oil and gas and will increase significantly by the time of trial,” the complaint states.

The complaint states that PDC knew of the existing compensation agreement with Mineral Resources when it sought to drill wells in the area — prior to purchasing Extraction’s Greeley assets — but offered an alternative compensation to MRI: “In that instance, Plaintiffs and Defendant agreed on an alternative arrangement whereby Defendant assigned Plaintiffs a 160-acre lease in exchange for Plaintiffs waiving the financial obligations in the surface use agreement.”

In 2022, PDC purchased the assets that Extraction acquired from Mineral Resources, but the fine print on that sale bound any future buyers of those assets to the original compensation terms and use agreements, the complaint stated, “which obligate Defendant to use Plaintiffs’ surface or provide Plaintiffs the opportunity to obtain the surface desired by Defendant for development of the Acquisition Area and enter into the form surface use agreement for each site.”

The wells being drilled were horizontal wells, meaning that companies can drill vertically from up to two miles away, then snake drills horizontally into the formation to frack the wells. The method reduces the surface-level footprint of drilling.

“Defendant intentionally developed the … leases and other lands in the Acquisition Area from surface locations not provided by or acquired through Plaintiffs, knowing that it was contractually obligated to use Plaintiffs’ surface locations and to compensate Plaintiffs pursuant to the form surface use agreement, thereby intentionally depriving Plaintiffs of revenues rightfully belonging to them,” the complaint states.

Chevron purchased PDC Energy for $7.6 billion in 2023, creating the largest oil and gas company in Colorado.

Richmark is a driving force behind the development of the Greeley Downtown Civic Campus. When it sold the majority stake in its oil and gas holdings in 2014, the Richardson family grew its real estate business to build housing throughout Greeley and Northern Colorado. The company also began buying up several properties in downtown Greeley to revitalize the Eighth Avenue corridor.

Spokespersons for Chevron and Mineral Resources did not respond to requests for comment.

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