million cubic feet (Mmcf) of gas and 6,700 barrels of petroleum condensate per year, and in two years the investment had reaped more than $1.6 million.

Note: PTTC is working with Natural Gas STAR to develop a "green completions" case study. Watch for it in the Petroleum Technology Digest in World Oil in 2006.

Excerpted from an article in the Casper Star Tribune (Aug. 31, 2005 available online at http://
casperstartribune.net/articles/
2005/08/31/news/casper/869
3d34c588c76858725706d008
38235.txt).

Texas RRC Offering Assistance for Brownfields Site Assessment

The Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC) is offering assistance with environmental assessments at abandoned O&G facilities. Through a brownfields grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the RRC has created the Brownfields Response Program to identify brownfields sites associated with E&P activities and to promote voluntary cleanup by providing funding for environmental site assessments with little to no cost. The RRC Voluntary Cleanup Program will provide a framework for the oversight of assessments.

The RRC welcomes inquiries from anyone interested in applying for a no-cost, federally-funded assessment. Potential stakeholders may include local governments, non-profit organizations, tribes, universities, private landowners or developers.

For more information, visit www.
rrc.state.tx.us/divisions/og/brown
field/index.html.

Proposed Revisions
to SPCC Rule

In early December, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed two separate amendments to the Spill Prevention, Control, and Countermeasure (SPCC) Rule. One streamlines the regulatory requirements for qualified facilities and equipment. The second extends the SPCC compliance dates for all facilities.

The EPA proposes extending the compliance dates for both Plan amendment and implementation to October 31, 2007 for all regulated facilities. Extension would allow those facilities that may be affected by a final rule to take advantage of any streamlined provisions that may be promulgated.

The proposed rule revisions provides, among other things, two streamlining options for qualifying facilities/equipment. The proposal provides: (1) An option that would allow owners/operators of facilities that store less than 10,000 gallons of oil and meet other qualifying criteria, to self-certify their SPCC plan, in lieu of review and certification by a Professional Engineer and (2) An alternative to the secondary containment requirement, without requiring a determination of impracticability, for facilities that have certain types of oil-filled equipment.

For more information on the proposed revisions, visit www.
epa.gov/oilspill/nprm.htm. The EPA is requesting public comments on the proposed compliance date extension (before Jan. 10, 2006) and revised provisions (before Feb. 9, 2006).

Tundra Travel Model Extends Alaskan Winter Travel Season

The Alaska Department of Natural Resources has changed the way it measures ground hardness for North Slope tundra openings. The new standard, based on results of the tundra travel study sponsored by DOE NETL's Arctic Energy Office, is based on snow cover and subsurface temperature measured

by thermistors at 16 North Slope sites. Sounds nice, but what does this mean? Conditions will vary each year, but in general the new standards will lengthen the winter season when travel is allowed—often a month or more. Put simply, more time means more exploration means more reserves.

View project information online at
www.netl.doe.gov/technologies/
oil-gas/publications/AEC/Public
ations/projfactsheets/AKTun
Mod.pdf.

Green Completions
Make Economic & Environmental Sense

Sharing in an EPA Natural Gas STAR workshop that Devon Energy Corporation (Devon) hosted in Casper, Wyo. last August, Devon noted that it "recently spent $15,000 to capture methane from a new natural gas well in the Wamsutter area as part of a pilot program. It then sold that methane for $35,000, making a quick net gain of $20,000." There is a big opportunity to reduce emissions when completing new wells. When a well is first drilled and treated for production, there is usually a large volume of sand, water, methane and various condensate material that must be cleared out of the system before it is tied to a pipeline for sale on the market.

Devon, BP and others are developing so-called "green completion" systems that consist of a vessel that captures sands and solids, a three-phase separator and several fluid vessels. BP tested its first mobile unit in New Mexico at a cost of $1.4 million. The company used it on 106 well completions, recovered 350