| Abstract/Description or Keywords |
This State of the Play report provides an overview of the East Kootenay Basin (EKB), its coal bed gas (CBG) resources and the Commission’s role in regulating CBG resource development in the EKB. The EKB encompasses approximately 328,289 hectares (ha) of land in the East Kootenay region of southeast British Columbia. The basin extends from approximately 60 kilometres (km) north-northwest of Elkford to nearly 35 km south of Fernie and encompasses the community of Sparwood. The EKB is bounded to the east by the Alberta/British Columbia border and the western boundary follows the west edge of the Elk valley (Figure 1). There is an estimated provincial CBG resource potential of 2,535 billion cubic metres (109m3) or 90 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) from several coalfields throughout the province. An estimated 394.4 109m3 (14 Tcf) of CBG or 15 per cent lies within the EKB (Ryan, 2003). The portion of CBG resource that is recoverable is dependent on technology, drilling density, access and in-situ reservoir quality of the individual coal seams. Recovery factors for CBG vary depending on the aforementioned variables from 10-60 per cent, which would mean there is potentially 39 to 237 109m3 (1.5 to 8 Tcf ) of recoverable CBG reserves from the EKB. Although British Columbia has a variety of potential CBG areas, commercial production to date has been limited. A development near Hudson’s Hope in northern British Columbia by Hudson’s Hope Gas, Ltd. resulted in the first commercial CBG production in British Columbia in late 2008. The CBG exploration project targeted coal seams within the Cretaceous Gething formation. However, production was halted in early 2010 due to low natural gas prices coupled with longer than expected dewatering time that restricted CBG production from attaining the necessary rates required to offset operating costs. Currently, eight per cent of all natural gas produced in the United States comes from CBG developments; in Canada it is less than one per cent. There has been CBG exploration and development in the EKB over the past 20 years, but no commercial production has taken place to date. The EKB is made up of two structurally separate coalfields. The southern portion of the EKB is referred to as the Crowsnest coalfield and the northern portion is known as the Elk Valley coalfield (Figure 1). The Commission has omitted the Flathead coalfield, which is often associated with the EKB, from this report, as mining, oil and gas activities and CBG extraction within the Flathead coalfield is no longer permitted. Currently, there are two active CBG projects in the EKB. The Storm Cat Energy Corporation (Storm Cat) operated Green Hills project is located within the northern Elk Valley coalfield and covers over 26,000 ha of land. The Green Hills project has nine wells producing non-commercial volumes of CBG. Storm Cat continues to evaluate the economic viability and environmental sustainability of the Elk Valley project. The Mist Mountain project, operated by Apache Corporation (Apache), covers over 65,000 ha of land within the southern Crowsnest coalfield. This project continues to be in the appraisal stage, which is expected to last two to three years (with a cost to date of nearly $20 million). The purpose of this stage is to assess the viability of CBG production by proving technologies and practices that will allow for the design of an environmentally sustainable commercial project. The first well for this project was drilled in the summer of 2010. The initial test well was drilled to aid in determining the quality and quantity of produced water from the coal seams, and at what rate CBG would flow once dewatering is completed. Open discussion with local residents and First Nations has been on-going since the project was proposed in 2007. This includes continued public consultations, open house meetings, opening local offices and an environmental baseline study. |
