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DOE selects Western SynCoal project to improve stripper gas well economics Low-cost clean coal product, developed in government’s clean coal technology program, will be used to filter wastewater Petroleum News Alaska
In its third and final round of competition for projects that can help sustain natural gas production from “stripper” wells, the U.S. Department of Energy has selected a proposal to test a coal-based filtering material that could sharply reduce the costs of disposing of wastewater from these low-volume wells.
The Energy Department said June 13 that it plans to award $132,000 to Western SynCoal LLC of Billings, Mont. The company will combine the federal funding with $28,000 of its own money to develop a promising spinoff application for an enhanced coal-based product it developed in the government’s Clean Coal Technology Program.
The product, called SynCoal®, is a high-quality, low-moisture coal material made by heating and physically cleaning low-rank sub-bituminous coal. Originally intended as a low-sulfur fuel for power plants, the material has characteristics that researchers believe will make it ideal for filtering contaminated waste water. Its affinity for capturing hydrocarbon and other impurities makes it similar to activated carbon, but it is much less expensive.
Product could reduce water disposal costs The product is so economical that, if successful, it could reduce water disposal costs from low volume gas wells by 70 percent, dramatically prolonging the economic life of thousands of stripper gas wells.
Moreover, the water produced by the SynCoal® filtering process is clean enough for agricultural use. This could be especially beneficial in Northwestern states where clean water is at a premium, and a significant amount of natural gas production is carried out, the department said.
The cost of waste water disposal is a major factor in the economic “tightrope” that many stripper well operators must walk. As the flow of gas declines, the influx of water into these wells increases. Gas producers often must truck the waste water to disposal wells that can be several miles from the production site. Excluding trucking costs, waste water disposal can cost as much as $2 per barrel, costs that must be absorbed in the overall economics of a gas field.
Test to be in Denver-Julesburg basin Western SynCoal’s novel filtering system will be tested at an existing gas production facility owned and operated by NARCo of Denver, Colo. NARCo owns and operates about 450 stripper gas wells in the Denver-Julesburg basin in Colorado. Both companies are in the Energy Supply Division of the Montana Power Co. of Butte, Mont.
Western SynCoal’s Clean Coal Technology project was selected in 1988 by the Energy Department as one of a series of joint government-industry ventures to demonstrate advanced ways to use the nation’s abundant coal resources more cleanly and economically. In 1992 the company completed construction on a processing plant in Colstrip, Mont., to convert high-moisture, low-rank coals into the high-value SynCoal® product. To date, more than 1.5 million tons of SynCoal® has been produced by the plant, which is one-tenth commercial scale. Much of the product is being fed to Montana Power’s Colstrip No. 2 power plant.
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