DUSTIN BLEIZEFFER Star-Tribune energy reporter | Posted: Thursday, February 28, 2008 12:00 am
EnCana Oil & Gas USA Inc. wants to launch an 85- well exploratory drilling project next to its existing Jonah Field operations, according to the Bureau of Land Management.
The project area spreads across about 70,000 acres of public land in western Wyoming, including sage grouse habitat and part of an antelope migration route, according to the Biodiversity Conservation Alliance.
"Here we go again," alliance staff member Suzanne Lewis said in a prepared statement Wednesday. "When the Jonah Field hit 16 wells per square mile, it became the poster child for excessively dense drilling. Of course, it has gotten even worse from there."
EnCana spokesman Randy Teeuwen said it's too early to speculate whether the new project will evolve into a high-density play like Jonah.
"It's an exploratory project that we hope will be successful," Teeuwen said. "I would characterize it as a far cry from Jonah."
Lewis told the Star-Tribune her organization is concerned that EnCana and the BLM are calling it a new project that happens to be adjacent to the Jonah Field, and not an expansion of the field itself.
The new production area would be immediately south and west of the core production field. Some 14 gas wells have been drilled in the area already since 1999, according to the BLM.
Well density for the first few hundred wells in the Jonah Field was pared down from the standard one well per 640 acres to 80 acres. The Jonah infill project was approved based on a maximum surface disturbance of 14,033 acres, with well densities ranging all the way down to one well per five acres.
Currently, there are about 800 wells in Jonah, and EnCana is adding about 150 new wells each year. Teeuwen said current operations are far below the 14,033-acre disturbance limit.
Lewis said her group worries the same progression could occur in the proposed expansion area.
Wells within the new area would be drilled at an average density of one well per 80 acres, and a maximum density of one well per 40 acres, according to the BLM. EnCana's proposal includes the construction of associated access roads, pipelines, compressor stations, and other related facilities.
"It really expands those boundaries and takes in new lands, and it's starting out the way Jonah started out," Lewis said.
Lewis said that in the BLM's approval of the Jonah infill drilling project, the agency argued the affected area would be limited to 33,000 acres. The existing Jonah Field is a lattice network spanning about 25,000 acres.
"I don't think we can speculate on that," Teeuwen said. "That's why it's an exploratory project."
Energy reporter Dustin Bleizeffer can be reached at (307) 577-6069 or dustin.bleizeffer@trib.com.