Questar gets OK to drill year-round in Wyoming

One of the nation's most significant underground reservoirs of natural gas will now be open to year-round drilling.

Salt Lake-based Questar Corp. announced Wednesday that it had received approval from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to phase in a year-round drilling program on the Pinedale Anticline in western Wyoming, south of Jackson Hole and west of the Wind River Mountains.

Previously, Questar was restricted from drilling on the nearly 18,000-acre site from December through April to protect mule deer that use the area for winter range.

In exchange for year-round drilling, Questar proposed to implement an offshore drilling process known as directional drilling, which allows drilling from a single site to distant locations.

By utilizing directional drilling, Questar said it could drill up to 16 wells from a single two- to four-acre site, eliminating the need for 15 other drilling sites. But because directional drilling costs more than conventional drilling, the utility petitioned the BLM for year-round access.

"With directional drilling and other mitigation, we will reduce initial habitat disturbance on our leasehold by about two-thirds to 500 acres from about 1,500 acres," Chuck Stanley, chief executive of Questar Exploration and Production, said in a prepared statement. "We will eliminate up to 25,500 truckloads per year of produced condensate and water. . . . We will cut development time by about a decade."

Questar will be permitted to operate one pad with two drilling rigs this winter. During the winter of 2005-2006, three pads with two drilling rigs per pad will be in operation. The drilling will continue for nine years, after which Questar has proposed a $210 million mitigation plan.

The BLM maintains its decision to open year-round drilling "will significantly reduce currently authorized human activity impacts and surface disturbance in crucial mule deer winter range and greater sage-grouse habitats." In addition, the bureau said, the total number of drilling pads will be reduced from 150 to 61.

Steve Thomas, regional director of the Sierra Club, said the year-round drilling decision was not a major issue for the organization.

"We certainly don't like the idea of year-round drilling on winter wildlife range," Thomas said. "We think that's a mistake."

Marisa Martin, an attorney for the Wyoming Outdoor Council, in Lander, Wyo., called the BLM's decision good and bad.