Agencies OK Montana CBM project
riday, November 26, 2004 10:00 PM MST
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) -- The Bureau of Land Management and two state agencies have approved a Wyoming company's plan to drill 16 exploratory coal-bed methane wells near Decker to determine whether the area could sustain commercial production.
The BLM, along with the Montana Department of Environmental Quality and Board of Oil and Gas Conservation, said Wednesday an environmental assessment has been completed on the proposal by Powder River Gas of Sheridan.
The assessment also supports issuing a permit for discharging treated water into the Tongue River.
Tom Reid, a DEQ water permit specialist, said the discharge permit is the first one Montana has issued for a coal-bed methane project since the state adopted numeric water quality standards for salinity and sodium in the Tongue River. The limits in the discharge permit comply with those standards, he said. The discharge permit becomes effective Jan. 1.
The project also is believed to be the first in Montana to treat groundwater produced in extracting the gas.
Drilling for natural gas found in coal seams requires discharging large volumes of groundwater, which holds the gas in the coal seams under pressure. The water tends to run high in sodium and salinity, which can damage certain soils and plants. Powder River Gas plans to treat the water by removing sodium and other metallic ions.
Powder River Gas plans to drill the 16 exploratory wells about 10 miles northeast of Decker, on the west side of the Tongue River.
The project will be downstream from discharges by Fidelity Exploration and Production Co., Montana's only coal-bed methane producer. Both projects are upstream from the Tongue River Dam.
Drilling is expected to take three days for each well, but the testing phase may last up to six months as approved by the BLM and Board of Oil and Gas Conservation.
Before any production could occur, Powder River Gas will have to submit production plans to the BLM and Board of Oil and Gas Conservation for approval. Then, another environmental analysis would be conducted by the agencies for any proposed production operations. |
