State Agencies and WellDog partner to find CBM bypassed gas
Several State Agencies and WellDog announced today that they have initiated a pilot program to locate and qualify natural gas possibly overlooked by coalbed methane (CBM) operators in the Powder River basin. The program involves using WellDog’s GasSpotter technical services to locate and quantify gas in abandoned or distressed properties and the Wyoming State Geological Survey’s isotope enrichment services to qualify the producibility of that gas.
The pilot project involves reviewing abandoned and distressed CBM fields in the basin for appropriate technical, legal and commercial characteristics, then testing one or more fields for gas, permeability and reservoir constraint. The goal of the project is to demonstrate that substantial natural gas remains untapped in the basin and that its production can occur in an economical and responsible fashion.
“Potentially, there are many wells in the Powder River basin that will have to be evaluated to determine whether or not they should become orphans,” said Tom Doll, supervisor of the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. “This pilot project will allow us to demonstrate clear identification of those that should be commercial versus those that should be abandoned. We’re hopeful the data resulting from this and future work will incent operators to focus on our producible gas.”
“We’re intent on enabling the state of Wyoming to market its natural gas assets for production more effectively,” said John M. Pope, Ph.D., president and CEO of WellDog. “In our experience, many coals in the Powder River basin contain economic levels of gas yet have not received sustained production efforts for a variety of reasons. This pilot project will demonstrate in a small way the level of CBM gas asset that remains to be produced in Wyoming and the tax revenue that is at stake. It also represents a beta test of WellDog’s new potential business line directed at appraising government CBM assets in order to increase their marketability.”
Approximately four trillion cubic feet of natural gas has been produced from coals in the Powder River basin to date, according to Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission records, and generated billions of dollars in tax and royalty payments to the state. The U.S. Department of Energy report estimates an additional eight to 23 trillion cubic feet of gas are economically recoverable, with the exact amount depending on gas prices and water management costs.
References: http://wogcc.state.wy.us/coalbedchart.cfm and http://fossil.energy.gov/programs/oilgas/publications/coalbed_methane/06_prb_study.pdf
