Jonah Field

  1. Articles lacking sources from May 2011
  2. Articles with invalid date parameter in template
  3. All articles lacking sources
  4. All pages needing factual verification
  5. Wikipedia articles needing factual verification from May 2011
  6. Wyoming articles missing geocoordinate data
  7. All articles needing coordinates
  8. Geography of Sublette County, Wyoming
  9. Natural gas fields in the United States
  10. Energy resource facilities in Wyoming
  11. BP


Question book-new.svg
This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2011)

Jonah Field is a large natural gas field in the Green River Basin in Sublette County, Wyoming, in the United States. The field is approximately 32 miles (51 km) south of Pinedale and 65 miles (105 km) north of Rock Springs in southwestern Wyoming, and is estimated to contain 10.5 trillion cubic feet (297 billion cubic meter) of natural gas. Managed by the Bureau of Land Management, the field has a productive area of 21,000 acres (85 km²).

History

The presence of natural gas in and around Sublette County was known for years, but it was not deemed practical to extract. El Paso Natural Gas Company in the 1970s, in cooperation with Federal Government of the United States and the Atomic Energy Commission, proposed a project called Wagon Wheel Nuclear Stimulation Project, which was an attempt to detonate 5 small nuclear explosions to fracture the sands and enable natural-gas production. The project was abandoned and the Jonah Field and surrounding areas, including the Pinedale Anticline, were left undeveloped for years.

Jonah Field was discovered by geologist Ed Warner working with McMurry Oil. The field proved viable after the drilling of the McMurry Oil Company Jonah-Federal #1-5 in January, 1993 where McMurry placed their operations office.

Development

Jonah Field is known for being one of the largest on-shore natural gas discoveries in the USA in the early 1990s. The startling fact is that Jonah has a surface area of approximately one township yet it contains 10.5 trillion cubic feet (297 bcm) of gas. In comparison, the Hugoton Field covers most of the southwest portion of Kansas, a 14 county area, yet it contained only about three times the volume of gas in Jonah.

The principal technical challenge in Jonah is identification and stimulation of productive intervals in a 3,000 ft (910 m) to 3,500 ft (1,100 m) section of stacked lenticular fluvial sand/silt/shale sequences which comprise the Upper Mesaverde, Lance, and Unnamed Tertiary formations. Hydraulic fracturing is used to open (stimulate) the tight sand formations that exist more than a mile and a half underground, which allows gas to be recovered at economic rates.

The major gas companies currently developing the field are the EnCana Corporation and BP. Other active gas companies involved in the Jonah Field include Ultra Petroleum and Yates Petroleum.

Other large natural gas fields in and around Sublette County, Wyoming include the Pinedale Anticline, the Wamsutter gas field and several sour gas H2S fields operated by ExxonMobil.

Environmental Impact

There is a scientific consensus that the effect of drilling gas wells on the population of sage grouse is devastating.[verification needed] Gas exploration roads, gas compression and water pumping installations, and pads for gas wells destroy native sage brush bushes, many of which are over a hundred years old. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service states that oil and gas exploration represents the single greatest threat to sage grouse. Sage grouse are now listed as warranting protection under the Endangered Species Act, in part because of the effects of energy development on their habitat. Local antelope are also severely affected by the drilling.

External links


...