Report: Rockies key domestic gas player

A new report says the Rocky Mountain region is the only one in the nation to show growth in long-term natural gas resources and will probably play a key role in U.S. energy production for the next two decades.

“The Rockies, by all estimates, will play a much greater role in natural-gas production over the next 25 years,” said John Curtis, a geology professor at Colorado School of Mines and executive director of the Potential Gas Committee, which compiled the report. The report shows the Rockies’ gas potential has increased 9.3 percent over the past two years while other regions were flat or posted declines. It says proven reserves of gas and estimated long-term resources total 1,308 trillion cubic feet, enough to supply the nation’s needs for about 60 years.

Nationwide, potential gas resources have slipped 0.7 percent since the last report two years ago, suggesting that a lot of easily produced gas already has been recovered and remaining supplies will be more difficult and costly to get.

Curtis also told The Denver Post the Rockies’ natural-gas production may not reach its potential because of environmental opposition, delays in government permitting and limited access to some public land.

The estimated gas resources in the Rockies grew from 175 tcf in 2002 to 191 tcf feet last year. The report said geologists and energy companies are using better exploration and production techniques that make more gas potentially recoverable.

“This demonstrates that the Rockies is where the growth is, it’s where the action is,” said Ken Wonstolen, senior vice president of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association.

The study relies on geologic surveys and lists gas resources, which is different from the more commonly reported reserves. Reserves indicate known quantities of gas that can be economically produced at existing prices and technologies, while resources are a longer-term look at gas that could be recovered.

—The Associated Press