Reprinted from Alaska Journal of Commerce
Matanuska-Susitna Borough officials said June 18 that Fowler Oil & Gas Corp. has applied for a conditional use permit to drill for coal bed methane on farmland in the Valley.
More than 1,300 property owners within a 1-mile radius of the corner of Bogard Road, Trunk Road and Colony School Drive are being notified by mail, and will have until Aug. 8 to comment, borough officials said.
Fowler is proposing the pilot project of one well on an 840-acre unit. The Palmer-based company says its operation will meet or exceed borough permit thresholds.
“We're cautiously optimistic about the feasibility of the way he is proposing to drill for coal bed methane,” said Kathy Wells, executive director of Friends of Mat-Su, a grassroots Valley organization promoting healthy, sustainable community growth.
“He is proposing he can do it with a very small footprint, not affect our water, not bring water to the surface and not do much land disturbance. Another intriguing aspect is to pay a royalty to the surface owner as well as the subsurface owner, but it all needs to be proven up.
“To me it is refreshing to have someone be this open; it's been a very open dialogue with him. If he can get the gas the way he says he can and get it into the Enstar line, it will benefit everyone and more power to him,” Wells said.
Borough planning director Murph O'Brien said the pilot program proposes to use a large unit with a single well and horizontal drilling. “This pilot program is significantly different than the earlier multiple-well CBM proposals that raised so much controversy,” according to O'Brien.
Fowler said it will pay royalties to the owners of the 840 acres, who also own subsurface rights, borough officials said. Four families own the 840 acres and are leasing it to the development company. Borough officials identified the landowners as the families of Henry M. Kircher, Paul and Helen Riley, Rita Ashmore and Bob and Jean Havemeister, all Valley residents.
Fowler officials said that 10 times more coal with 10 times the gas content is in the Mat-Su Borough than in the Powder River Basin in Wyoming, an area that has experienced a boom in coal bed methane development. Some 382 billion cubic feet of gas is in the coal seams of this unit, as projected by the company.
The life of the well is expected to be 50 years.
Borough officials said they were told by the company that the well pump is quiet and that the technology does not require a compressor. The production pump would be housed in a replica colony barn, and impacts to the surface would be minimal, the company indicates.
Horizontal drilling technology would enable a single vertical well 3,500 feet down and would have lateral wells reaching 2,500 feet horizontally into the coal seams. A buried feeder pipeline will connect to the existing Enstar Natural Gas Co. pipeline, located in the road right of way. Borough officials said they were told the feeder pipeline would have no impact on ground water. A solid casing would be drilled through the first 1,000 feet to stay clear of well water.
Extraction would be from the horizontal wells at greater depths. No fracturing chemicals would be injected. No altered water will be brought to the surface, but instead would be siphoned off below ground and injected into deep sandstone formations, borough officials said.
Three years ago, hundreds of residents asked the borough to adopt regulations to protect their private property, and the borough followed through. Often in Alaska, a private landowner has rights to the surface and the state owns the minerals beneath it.
The permit will be introduced Aug. 6 before the borough planning commission, and a public hearing is set for Aug. 20. The borough has hired an environmental consulting firm to review the application.
Margaret Bauman can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .