Evergreen Resources would work with local contractors

Kristen Nelson

Evergreen Resources Inc. has a completely integrated approach to coalbed methane development and owns its own drilling, completing, fracturing and well completion equipment, the company’s president, Mark Sexton, told the House Special Committee on Oil and Gas Jan. 29.

But, he said, Evergreen also works extensively with local contractors, “once we get going and find the right combination of techniques” for a field.

Evergreen acquired the Pioneer unit in the Wasilla-Houston area in 2001 and will start by re-completing existing wells, Sexton said, bringing in a coiled tubing completion unit.

The company operates more than 700 coalbed methane wells in the Raton Basin in the Rockies and is a coalbed methane technology leader, he said.

Coalbed methane is “very process oriented” and all the basins are different, Sexton said. Coalbed methane development also requires large economies of scale, and the company could drill hundreds or thousands of wells in Cook Inlet “if we can crack the code” for the basin.

But Evergreen will start slowly, he said: In the Raton Basin, where the company now drills almost 150 wells a year, it started with four wells the first year and built up gradually.