JEFF GEARINO Southwest Wyoming bureau | Posted: Monday, September 11, 2006 12:00 am
GREEN RIVER - Energy producers are proposing a major expansion to extend the life of the historic Hiawatha natural gas fields in southwest Wyoming and northeast Colorado that could include the drilling of 2,800 gas wells in Sweetwater County.
Two familiar names in western Wyoming energy development - Questar Exploration and Production Co. and Wexpro Co. - and other natural gas operators are proposing to drill and develop up to 4,208 new wells in Colorado's Hiawatha field and Wyoming's Canyon Creek, Trail and Kinney fields over the next three decades.
The active fields are located about 55 miles south of Point of Rocks in the southwest portion of Wyoming's Red Desert.
Bureau of Land Management officials in the Rock Springs and Little Snake, Colo., field offices are beginning work on an environmental impact statement for the Hiawatha Regional Energy Development Project, BLM spokeswoman Susan Davis said.
The companies are seeking federal permission to further develop natural gas resources within what's known as the shallow fields of the Vermillion Basin area of Sweetwater County - which includes the existing Canyon Creek and smaller Trail and Kinney natural gas fields - and the East and west Hiawatha/SugarLoaf Fields in Moffat County, Colo.
The project area covers about 157,000 acres, according to a BLM notice.
It is estimated that about two-thirds, or up to 2,805, of the potential wells could be located within the Wyoming portion of the project area.
If the project is approved, the wells would be drilled during an estimated 30-year period, with as many as 200 wells possibly being drilled each year, according to company plans.
The BLM, the two states and various private landowners have issued oil and gas leases covering 97 percent of the project area, the notice said.
Many of the leases date back to the 1920s. The Hiawatha discovery well was drilled in 1927, and other early wells in the project area included the Canyon Creek discovery well drilled in 1941 and the Trail discovery well drilled in 1958.
The companies are proposing to drill with a 40-acre downhole well spacing per section, with approval from the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. Additional roads, various smaller gas pipelines, one major transmission pipeline, compressor stations and an addition to a gas treatment facility would be constructed.
The major transmission pipeline would for run for 55 miles from the Canyon Creek Gas Treatment Facility to the Interstate 80 corridor.
Conservation concerns
Erik Molvar, a wildlife biologist with the Laramie-based Biodiversity Conservation Alliance, wondered if the project would create more problems for Red Desert lands and wildlife in southwest Wyoming when combined with other natural gas and coal-bed methane projects slated for or under way in the area.
"When you add together this project with the Continental Divide-Creston Project and the Atlantic Rim coal-bed methane project, we're talking about more than 15,000 wells to be approved in the Red Desert," Molvar said in a statement.
"There's a real opportunity here for (the operators) to avoid sensitive landscapes and employ advanced technologies like well-clustering and directional drilling to create an exemplary gas project," he said.
Southwest Wyoming bureau reporter Jeff Gearino can be reached at 307-875-5359 or at gearino@tribcsp.com.