Appreciate the clear breakdown of the lease sale numbers and the policy backdrop. The fact that 94% of the acreage moved at or near the $10 minimum does read as turning large swaths of public land into very low-cost options for industry.

Having spent years around Colorado’s energy and business community... mostly through my partnership in a long-running neighborhood restaurant in Cherry Creek, where I poured wine for board members at their annual meetings... I’ve seen how many of the successful independents build real companies that started by taking calculated risks on acreage when carrying costs were higher and the path to production required real work and capital.

The man I knew best, was a local example of someone who built from that kind of foundation vs earning his position the old way, by putting real skin in the game when the economics demanded it.

What stands out in the current setup is how recent rule changes appear to have flattened the risk/reward curve so dramatically that holding speculative positions now carries almost no downside for the lessee, while the public absorbs the opportunity cost and any future impacts. It’s worth asking whether the goal is still actual development or simply inventory accumulation at minimal expense.