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Page added on June 9, 2016
Western Colorado has 40 times more natural gas than thought
Western Colorado has 40 times more natural gas than previously thought, but an immediate boom is unlikely because of low gas prices, government and industry experts said Wednesday.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the Mancos Shale formation in Colorado’s Piceance Basin holds about 66.3 trillion cubic feet of gas, up from 1.6 trillion estimated in 2003.
USGS cited data from commercial drilling companies and new research for the revision.
A trillion cubic feet of natural gas is enough to heat 15 million homes for a year, the U.S. Energy Department says.
David Ludlam, executive director of the West Slope Colorado Oil and Gas Association, said he doesn’t expect a rush to drill in western Colorado because natural gas prices are too low, hovering around $2 to $2.40 per million cubic feet. If prices reach $3.50 per million cubic feet, companies would likely begin drilling, he said.
The U.S. also needs more facilities to export natural gas to Pacific nations to help make the Colorado gas competitive, Ludlam said, citing the proposed Jordan Cove Liquid Natural Gas terminal at Coos Bay, Ore.
The Piceance Basin, which spans much of western and northwestern Colorado, already has multiple well sites, pipelines and processing plants in place from a previous round of drilling in a shallower formation, Ludlam said.
Much of the basin is federal land managed by the Bureau of Land Management, and getting approval from the BLM to drill is often more difficult than getting private landowners to agree, said Kathleen Sgamma of the Western Energy Alliance, an industry group.
“I hope with this reassessment the government understands that indeed the Mancos Shale is an important formation that should be developed responsibly,” she said.
Neither BLM nor USGS officials immediately returned calls Wednesday.
The new estimate could mean the Piceance Basin has the second-largest natural gas reserves in the country, after the Marcellus Shale formation in Pennsylvania and neighboring states, Ludlam said.
USGS says the Marcellus has 84 trillion cubic feet of gas.
More important than the volume of the reserves is the cost of extracting them, said Porter Bennett, an energy analyst and president of Ponderosa Advisors in Denver.
Bennett said the Piceance Basin has traditionally had high drilling costs, but Ludlam said the next wave of energy companies with leases in the area likely would have lower costs than previous operators.
Drilling companies will use hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to recover the gas from the Mancos Shale, Ludlam said.
Fracking uses a mix of water, sand and chemicals under high pressure to force open underground formations and release oil and gas. Opponents say fracking poses a risk to public health and the environment but the industry says it is safe.
17 Comments on "Western Colorado has 40 times more natural gas than thought"
Stuifzand on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 6:07 am
The more you look, the more you find.
There is enough fossil in the earth’s crust to fry us all.
http://tinyurl.com/oa6l9nv
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jul/02/peak-oil-we-we-wrong
Use the fossil capital to move straight into renewables and use climate change as the argument/pretext to get there.
yoshua on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 6:24 am
Is fracking for gas economically viable ? I have read that the ERoEI is 80:1 and still it seems that the gas producers are struggling to survive.
The U.S is still a net importer of gas and still they are talking about exporting gas.
This whole oil and gas business is somewhat obscure.
Hello on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 7:08 am
>>>> I have read that the ERoEI is 80:1 and still it seems that the gas producers are struggling to survive
That’s because eroei doesn’t matter.
rockman on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 8:43 am
Y – As Hello points out the EROEI doesn’t determine profitability. But I also doubt that 80:1 EROEI is anywhere close to that high. Remember that NG has a relatively Btu compared to the deisel we use to drill wells. BTW I know a lot of companies focused on NG…like mine. But unless they broke their backs chasing oil from shales I don’t know of even one in financial trouble. We’ve dealt with low NG prices for about 10 years so we haven’t been tossing money at it like the crazy oil hunters.
What we have done is cut drilling way back. And the big US NG play, the Marcellus, was developed profitably using those low prices. But now that they’ve slide lower only the better remaining prospects are being drilled. Yes: revenue is down but the great majority of those players have recovered their investments…and then some.
As far as the new NG numbers in CO: big f*cking deal. LOL. That’s only a very tiny fraction of the NG RESOURCES we have in the country and on the plant. Notice I said RESOURCES and not RESERVES. I’ll assume you understand the difference. If not just let us know and someone will give a quick explanation.
marmico on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 8:49 am
The U.S is still a net importer of gas and still they are talking about exporting gas.
Another Turdberg fuctard poster who doesn’t have the simplest idea about markets.
You see, if the distance between Canada [Texas] natty gas producers and Idaho importers [Mexico importers] consumers is less than the distance between Pennsylvania natty gas producers and Idaho [Mexico], markets would dictate that Idaho [Mexico] would import natty gas from Canada [Texas].
Sheesh, the innumerates are migrating from Our Finite World.
marmico on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 9:03 am
As far as the new NG numbers in CO: big f*cking deal. LOL
67 TCF is another 2.5 years of U.S. domestic reserve/production ratio, PODMAN.
PracticalMaina on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 9:05 am
We don’t need no stinking fracking.
Finally a justification for my beer drinking.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/mexican-engineer-extracts-gas-urine-heat-shower-032547409.html
“His invention requires just 13 to 21 milliliters of urine for a 15-minute hot shower, he said. Cooking beans for one hour demands only 70 to 130 milliliters of the golden liquid.”
What surprising small volumes of piss are required, makes me a little suspicious…. With those numbers I could switch my car to piss power.
yoshua on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 9:09 am
Thanks rockman… and thanks to you too marmico !
PracticalMaina on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 9:21 am
Good timing on this discovery, I have a feeling that Lake Mead is gonna want a break from cranking out the old electricity for the millions of acs the southwest is adding annually.
More power for the acs, therefore more people continue to move into the dessert, increased methane release from the drilling increases the extreme conditions of the dessert, repeat.
marmico on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 9:22 am
thanks to you too marmico
No problem. Give my regards to Fast “Plutonium Rod Big Dick” Eddy. Sheesh, what a fuctard.
Lawfish1964 on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 10:02 am
“The U.S. also needs more facilities to export natural gas to Pacific nations to help make the Colorado gas competitive…”
Brilliant strategy. Exchange money for the resource needed to keep our economy going a little longer.
yoshua on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 10:32 am
Sure thing marmico ! 🙂
Plantagenet on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 10:51 am
More NG means more methane means more global warming.
There is no point in reducing CO emissions if we are just going to grow our CH4 emissions by using more NG.
Cheers!
Boat on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 3:44 pm
Plant,
NG is the bridge away from coal to renewables. With the spread of an electric economy peak oil and the fear of running out of oil happens. Thank Obama.
Apneaman on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 3:51 pm
Boat there are no bridges – just inertia.
Alaska Continues to Bake, on Track For Hottest Year
“Alaska just can’t seem to shake the fever it has been running. This spring was easily the hottest the state has ever recorded and it contributed to a year-to-date temperature that is more than 10°F (5.5°C) above average, according to data released Wednesday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The Lower 48, meanwhile, had its warmest spring since the record-breaking scorcher of 2012.”
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/alaska-continues-to-bake-on-track-for-hottest-year-20422
GregT on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 5:38 pm
“NG is the bridge away from coal to renewables.”
More complete and utter nonsense Boat. NG is a fossil fuel, and does absolutely nothing to mitigate continued warming.
frankthetank on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 11:51 pm
Burn it..burn everything. I’ll burn my furniture to fuel my boat.