By Lindy J. Gwinn, Mountain Valley News staff
Eric Sanford of SG Interests brought a draft of the company's plans for exploration to the Gas and Oil Collaborative group meeting last week, to explain and take comments from the group about the plans for the Bull Mountain Unit.
SG Interests is a company that is drilling and placing a natural gas pipeline up Muddy Creek on Bull Mountain. The company has been working with the Bureau of Land Management to do an Environmental Assessment in to get a more complete grasp of the cumulative impacts to a whole unit rather than do an EA for each well proposal.
“This is the kind of planning we like to see. It allows us to see a much bigger picture and look at impacts as a unit rather than just looking at each pad and well and the infrastructure for the individual site. This way we can look at the overall plan and it helps us do long term planning for roads and pipelines that make sense,” said Barb Sharrow of the BLM.
According to Sanford, SG and BLM have identified 60 well locations in that unit that make sense to both SG and BLM.
“Currently, we have ten producing pads and one water injection well that we hope to start in May. Of the remaining 49 wells, 45 of them will be production wells and the other four will be deep-water injection wells. Of those wells, only one has been permitted at this time,” said Sanford.
One of the unique features of permitting this unit is that all of the land is private, and all the minerals are federal. This is commonly known as a “split estate.” This means that companies and landowners work together to locate surface disturbance and structures, and the company pays the landowner for the surface use of the land. It also means that, because the mineral lease is federal, the company has the right by law to extract the underlying minerals, whether the land owner wants them extracted or not. Companies such as SG Interests and others are required by the permitting process to work with landowners to come to an agreement over fees and surface disturbance.
Sanford said, “One of the things that surprises me the most is that there is a large percentage of people that don't know who owns their mineral rights. It surprises me because it is on everyone's land title and is disclosed on their deeds. There is no nice way to tell someone that is not aware that the feds own the minerals. That, by law, someone is going to extract those minerals, and they don't really have a say in that. What they can do is work with the operator to try to work out something that they can live with in terms of locating things, and other concessions that the operator might be able to make to help them. Sometimes it doesn't matter what the words are, what tone of voice you use, they are just flabbergasted that someone can come on their property and do something.”
In terms of the environmental assessment with the BLM, SG has contracted a private firm to assist in mapping and planning for locations for the wells where they make the most sense and cause the least amount of impact, yet extract the gas efficiently as required by the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission regulations.
SG Interests, at their own cost, flew the entire 20,000 acre unit with Lidar, a very accurate GIS mapping system that allows topography and details to be seen that are within six inches of actual on the ground measurements. It allows vegetation, wetlands, roads and slope to be identified accurately in the models.
Criteria that SG wanted prioritized in the models included: slope, view sheds, water crossings, soil types, existing roads, existing pipelines, meadows and vegetation, sensitive areas, and hydrology.
In order to make the plan make sense, to mitigate impacts and to access the proposed locations, it made sense to try to locate the proposed wells where the terrain was accessible, where the least amount of new road and new pipeline had to be constructed, and where there were going to be the least amount impact to wildlife and vegetation.
After creating about a dozen models, SG is almost ready to present the BLM with a final proposal for the unit.
The latest model created by SG has 29.9 miles of new pipeline and 29 miles of road. Of those road miles, 15.2 miles is new road construction and 13.8 miles is upgrades on existing roads. The breakdown per well per pad is: 252 acres of gas can be drained, .59 miles of road is necessary, and .67 miles of pipeline is required.
The final draft will be submitted by SG in the fall of 2010. “If no action is the decision, all that means is that we will permit each well individually. It does not mean there will be no drilling. If this proposed action is approved, there would still be a lightweight NEPA on each road. What that means is a ten page report rather than a 150 page report with each well,” said Sanford.
