05-02-03 Wyoming's Powder River Basin holds nearly 25 % of total US coal bed methane resources, which a Wyoming state official described Friday as "the hottest US energy development in the last five years."
The Powder River Basin could see 3.6 bn cfpd of maximum production once a new federal environmental impact statement is on record by mid-February, said Don J. Likwartz, state oil and gas supervisor of the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. The impact statement may open federal lands from what is now a "checkerboard production" view, he said.

Likwartz told a coal bed methane seminar that nearly 25 tcf of coal bed methane is available for production at the Powder River Basin. That compares with a total of 73 tcf proved, probable and possible coal bed methane reserves in the US, according to a 2001 Potential Gas Committee estimate.
Cumulative production at the end of 2001 was 11 tcf from 11 states, Likwartz said. Powder River Basin produced only about 500 bn cf of that total. The majority -- 8.8 tcf -- came from the prolific San Juan Basin in northern New Mexico. By comparison, there are another 29 tcf of proved reserves in the US, including 19.4 in the San Juan Basin, Likwartz said.

Looking back, the first Powder River Basin wells were drilled in 1986, with about 10-55 wells drilled per year through 1995 -- a total of 427, he said. From 1996 to 2000, more than 4,502 wells were drilled with 85 rigs, an average of 55 wells per rig. In 2001, 4,232 wells were drilled, about 6 % fewer than the year before as play moved west to deeper coal formations.
In 2002, only 2,560 wells were drilled, about 40 % less than the year before as gas prices tanked, Likwartz said. The current drilling rate is about 5-7 per day. Coal bed methane production for 2002 is projected to be around 340 bn cf, averaging about a 91 % a year increase. With higher gas prices, as many as 5,000 coal bed methane wells are projected to be drilled into 2007, according to Likwartz' estimates.

Water production associated with coal bed methane efforts is around 575 mm barrels in 2002, up from 517 mm barrels in 2001.
But Likwartz complains that Powder River Basin coal bed methane development is hampered by a number of myths that hamper production -- mostly from environmental groups and a handful of "Eastern" landowners who claim the production has fouled their lands and water, he said. They still associate new technological efforts to produce energy with robber barons of the past, he said.

Likwartz took on charges one by one -- including ground subsidence or sinking, coal fires, water produced in drilling, predictions of flooding and lost groundwater. Few, if any such problems, ever occur in the Powder River Basin area, he said. Of 6,000 or more landowners in the area, fewer than a dozen have made claims of problems with drilling.
"They are manufacturing problems that aren't there," Likwartz said of the landowners and environmental groups. He duly offers these groups the opportunity to accompany him or hisstaff on tours of the area and even allows them to mark the route they prefer.

However, he gets little satisfaction from media's opposition and editorials slamming the environmental effects, despite his own repeated efforts "to show them what we're doing," he said. On the positive side, drilling in the Powder River Basin has brought as much as $ 10 bn to the coffers of Wyoming, "putting the state in the black for the last two years," he said.
Coal-bed-methane-produced water to date, he says, has slightly higher total dissolved solids than club soda. Federal drinking water standards for example, allow only about 500 parts of dissolve solids per million, putting Powder River Basin production water at a level close to bottled waters. "I take people out on tours and I ask them to drink the water," he said. "It has a flat taste."