Chevron’s 3 tcf Piceance basin project gears up

Chevron Corp. has started gas production in a $7.3 billion project to develop an estimated 3 tcf of gas over several decades in the Piceance basin in northwestern Colorado.

Production, begun Aug. 25, is 5 MMcfd from the Cretaceous Williams Fork formation through a 30-in. sales line. Chevron has drilled 82 wells on four pads and is launching work on the fifth and sixth pads. Two rigs are running.

The staged operation will involve drilling, fracturing, and completing 2,000 to 3,000 gas-condensate wells from multiwell pads on 33,000 acres in Garfield County and installing gas gathering and compression equipment. Chevron has 100% working interest.

Current production capacity of the facilities is 50 MMcfd, and capacity is intended to build to 400-450 MMcfd in several years. Development drilling began in 2007 with the two purpose-built rigs, and four more rigs are to join them over time.

As many as 22 extended-reach wells are to be completed from a single pad.

Chevron signed a long-term agreement in late 2007 with Enterprise Gas Processing LLC to gather and treat the gas in Rio Blanco County at Enterprise’s 750 MMcfd Meeker processing plant (OGJ, Nov. 26, 2007, Newsletter). Extracted liquids are to be transported from the plant through Enterprise’s Mid-America Pipeline.

Condensate from the project is trucked to Rangely, Colo., where it is transported via the Chevron pipeline to the company’s 45,000 b/d Salt Lake City refinery.