DOE Digest

Managing CBM Produced Water in Powder River Basin

The most recent issue of DOE's Eye on Environment newsletter focuses on research/project work related to the role of produced water impoundment and infiltration systems in CBM Development in the Powder River Basin. Because of the water's relatively high quality, regulators are directing industry to seek beneficial uses. In a semi-arid region like the Powder River, surface impoundments are a natural solution.

There is currently lots of relatively high quality water being produced—in 2004 some 350 million Bbls in Wyoming and 16 million Bbls in Montana—and this will increase significantly as the CBM resource becomes fully developed. Now it is estimated that 50% of the water produced from coal seams is managed through surface ponds and reservoirs. There are approximately 2,000 permitted impoundments in Wyoming receiving CBM water. Affected watersheds include the Powder River (58%), Belle Fourche, Cheyenne and Little Powder River (11% each), and Tongue River (9%).

ALL Consulting, Inc. leads work in this project that receives funding from Montana's Board of Oil and Gas Conservation, DOE, Bureau of Land Management, and Wyoming's Department of Environmental Quality. Multiple areas, listed below, are being investigated. The study was recently expanded to include additional field monitoring of groundwater around existing ponds and reservoirs.

• Water Statistics

• Siting and Design

• Operations

• Fate and Effects

• Modeling

• Injection/Re-Injection

The issue also describes DOE's overall oil and gas environmental research program, some 102 active projects during fiscal years 2004 and 2005. Access the full issue of "Eye on Environment" online at www.netl.doe.gov/scngo/Petro
leum/publications/newsletters/
eoe/EyeSum2005_2.pdf.

San Juan Basin—Reserve Adds From Menefee Formation

In the summer 2005 issue of GasTIPS, there is an article about reserve adds from the Menefee Formation in the San Juan Basin. In the basin operators typically complete wells in the Point Lookout and Cliff House Sandstones, ignoring the lenticular, lower quality Menefee Formation between them. Researchers from New Mexico Tech analyzed data from more than 75 new completions along with 30 original and 1980s wells, all within the same geographic area.

Results show that adding the Menefee increases incremental per well cumulative production by 103 MMscf. Reserve additions from the Menefee are much higher, more than double, when the Menefee is added on initial completion rather than by remedial workover.

Other topics covered in the issue include:

• Imaging Deep Gas Prospects with Multi-Component Seismic Data

• Integrated Seismic/Rock Physics Approach To Characterizing Fractured Reservoirs

• Dual-Density Drilling Systems Reduce Deepwater Drilling Costs: Part 1

• Laboratory Testing of an Active Drilling Vibration Monitoring & Control System

• Long-Term Cement Integrity of HPHT Cement Systems

• A High-Flying Alternative to Walking the Line

Access GasTIPS online at www.
netl.doe.gov/scngo/Reference%
20Shelf/GasTIPS/GasTIPS-Sum
mer2005.pdf.

Exploration in Montana's Crow Reservation

In May the Crow Tribe signed a 7,680-acre O&G exploration lease with Golden Arrow Exploration LLC, a Wyoming-based independent. Plans call for the first of as many as five exploratory wells to be drilled during summer 2005. Estimates are that the prospect could hold as much as 6.4 million barrels of crude oil reserves.

The prospect was first identified in 1998 by Dr. David Lopez, of the Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology, working within a DOE-supported Native American project. Lopez conducted extensive geologic studies of the entire 4,000-square-mile Crow Reservation in south-central Montana, and soil-gas geochemical exploration and analysis on a portion of the tribal lands. The Crow Tribe also holds mineral rights to an area north of the reservation called the Ceded Area, which was removed from the reservation in 1904 for homesteading. It was here that Lopez concentrated his research. Crow and Northern Cheyenne student interns from nearby tribal colleges helped with the field research.

Geologic studies indicated strong O&G potential at greater depths than many previous wells on the reservation had penetrated. Focus was on the Greybull Sandstone, which produces in the area. Studies found five major subsurface "channels" crossing the reservation. By integrating well logs, surface geology work, and subsurface data, the project was able to identify three exploration leads. Those leads were subsequently evaluated with soil-gas geochemistry. Of the samples

taken from the three identified exploration leads, a dramatic soil-gas anomaly was found over the Crow Agency prospect. Those led to a 2-D seismic survey (October 2004) that further defined the prospect. Armed with this data, Crow Tribe officials participated in prospect expos in Houston and Denver, which led to the lease agreement with Golden Arrow.

Access the full Techline online at www.netl.doe.gov/publications/
press/2005/tl_crow_oil.html.

Gas Storage Technology Consortium Selects
3 New Projects

In late August the Gas Storage Technology Consortium (GSTC) announced awards to three projects in its most recent round of proposals/funding. The GSTC is a DOE-supported R&D Consortium focusing on technology needs of the gas storage industry. GSTC has participated in nine projects in prior years' efforts.

Constructed Wetland System for Treating Produced Waters (Clemson University with participation of Dominion Transmission, Inc.). This project will design and build a demonstration-scale, hybrid constructed wetland treatment system configured specifically to treat targeted constituents in water produced from a gas storage field. The hybrid design will contain sequential reactors with the initial reactor focused on salt removal employing cost effective reverse osmosis or nanofiltration. Field site will be in West Virginia.

Scale Remediation Using Sonication (TechSavants, Inc. with participation of Nicor Gas and Furness Newburge, Inc.) A sonication system was developed and pilot-tested in work previously supported by DOE. In the pilot work, the system lowered skin from a pre-sonication value of +2.5 to a post-sonication value of -1.3. This project will further demonstrate technical and economic performance in six wells.

Field Deliverability Enhancement and Maintenance, An Intelligent Portfolio Management Approach (West Virginia University with participation of Columbia Gas Transmission Corporation). This work continues and completes a two-year project. Overall objective is to identify the best candidate wells for remedial operations employing an intelligent portfolio management approach. This methodology includes a hybrid form of artificial neural networks, genetic algorithms and fuzzy logic. Deliverable will be a Windows-based software application.

Visit the Consortium website (www.energy.psu.edu/gstc/) for more information about specific projects and the Consortium itself. Interested operators are urged to contact Consortium Director, Joel Morrison (814-865-4802, gstc@ems.psu.edu) at Penn State University.