The Rocky Mountain Region has seen a boom in coalbed methane
development in the past several years. While some of the basins
enjoy great drilling activity, the Denver (DJ) Basin stands out; it
has a history of coal mining, but evaluation of coalbed methane
potential has not been aggressively pursued. These Late Cretaceous
Laramie Formation and Early Tertiary Denver Formation coals appear
to hold some potential for coalbed methane by virtue of their
measured gas contents and heating values, shallow depths, and areas
of reasonable thickness and continuity. It appears to be a very
large resource, estimated at 2.2 TCF, so it deserves some industry
attention. However, the environmental issues associated with the
proximity to a large metropolitan area have been of great concern.
The Colorado Geological survey has recently completed a data
compilation titled: The Coalbed Methane Potential in the Upper
Cretaceous to Early Tertiary Laramie and Denver Formations, Denver
Basin, Colorado. This CD-ROM contains chemical, physical, structural
and stratigraphic information on Denver Basin coals, in a GIS
format. The CD-ROM is available for purchase on the Colorado
Geological Survey website: http://geosurvey.state.co.us/.
This new data resource was the inspiration for a workshop entitled
“Coalbed Methane Potential of the Denver Basin”, presented by PTTC
Rocky Mountain Region and the Colorado Geological Survey on
September 28, 2001 at the Denver Athletic Club. PTTC is pleased to
present the abstracts and slide shows from that workshop via the
Internet, and thanks the many authors for their permission to
provide this information to the oil and gas
community.