After battling the economic fallout of COVID-19, oil and gas developers in Oklahoma now face new, unique challenges after the Supreme Court declared that half of eastern Oklahoma is is Native American land, according to The Washington Post. Rather than dealing with the business-friendly state government, drillers will now work with tribal and federal governments to operate on the land.
About a quarter of Oklahoma’s recent oil and gas wells and around 60 percent of its refinery capacity now lie within the territory of five tribes, the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole.