Energy companies propose $36 million for Sublette wildlife habitat
BOB MOEN Associated Press writer | Posted: Wednesday, May 2, 2007 12:00 am
CHEYENNE - Three energy producers are offering to contribute $36 million to improve wildlife habitat and preserve wildlife migration routes around their national gas drilling sites in the Pinedale Anticline in western Wyoming.
The companies offered the money as the U.S. Bureau of Land Management crafts a plan based on their proposal to allow year-round drilling on parts of the Anticline. Currently gas development is restricted by seasonal closures to protect wildlife that spend the winter in the area and sage grouse that nest in the spring.
Conservationists have voiced opposition to dropping the seasonal restrictions, saying year-round development would disturb wildlife even more than now and cause more air pollution, among other impacts.
The $36 million offer from Questar Corp., Ultra Resources Inc., and Shell Exploration and Production Co. comes relatively late in the lengthy bureaucratic process for considering such proposals.
But BLM spokesman Steven Hall said the agency still has time to incorporate the companies' offer.
"We can take a look at the mitigation proposal, and we can factor that into our record of decision," Hall said Tuesday.
The BLM is studying comment from the public and the state of Wyoming on the overall Anticline proposal and plans to have a single, final proposal crafted by late summer or early fall, Hall said.
The final proposal would be subject to further scrutiny before the agency issues a record of decision, which would end all debate and set the BLM's chosen course into action.
Hall said the record of decision could be issued by the end of the year.
Hall noted that the $36 million mitigation fund is similar to the $24.5 million fund EnCana Oil and Gas Inc. set up for the nearby Jonah gas field in exchange for being able to drill more wells. The Pinedale and Jonah fields are both in Sublette County.
Ultra, Shell and Questar want to drill about 4,400 additional wells on the Anticline beyond the 600 already drilled there. Directional drilling will allow them to drill multiple wells from single pads. A total of 600 drilling pads are planned.
The companies argue that concentrating drilling in small portions of the Anticline year-round, along with other planned improvements, is better for wildlife and habitat than the current on-again, off-again activity under the current seasonal restrictions. If allowed to concentrate drilling in certain areas, the companies said they would leave adjacent leased areas of the Anticline untouched for wildlife.
Bryan Lastrapes, development manager for Shell, and J. Paul Methany, vice president of Questar's Rockies region, said the idea is to complete the drilling and reclamation more quickly than can be done under the current seasonal operations, which has led to spotty and unpredictable development.
In addition, they promise to reduce pollution from drilling rig engines 80 percent from 2005 levels within 3 1/2 years of the record of decision.
The $36 million would be in addition to the hundreds of millions of dollars the companies plan to spend restoring habitat disturbed directly by the development.
"The net costs to operators for implementing these combined measures will exceed $1 billion," according to a recent letter they sent to the BLM field manager in Pinedale.