Burlington Resources said late Thursday that it has shut in about 310 MMcf/d of gas production behind the Lost Cabin Gas Plant in the Madden Field in Fremont County, WY after discovering “localized pipe deformations” in the field’s high pressure gathering system. No pipeline ruptures or leaks prompted the action, the company said.

“We can’t speculate on when it will be back up and running,” said Burlington spokesman James Bartlett. “We want to make certain that there’s not anything going on out there with the gathering lines that we don’t understand. On one line leading from one well we found two kinks in the line and so we want to assess the situation and make certain that we can determine what caused them and ensure that it’s not a problem on the other lines leading to the other wells. We don’t know if it’s something mechanical or if something moved the pipe.”

Engineering studies are under way to determine the cause. The field’s producing wells and the treatment facility were shut-in as a precautionary safety measure, he said.

Production capacity into the plant inlet is 310 MMcf/d, with 210 MMcf/d of treated sales gas capacity — the plant extracts hydrogen sulfide, carbon dioxide and other impurities. Burlington holds a 42% interest in the production. Pogo Petroleum owns about 13% and the rest is owned by privately-owned production companies.

The precautionary shut-ins are not expected to affect the long-term value of this legacy asset, Burlington said. With an estimated 2.5 Tcf of gross recoverable gas, the Madden Field is expected to have a productive life of more than 20 years. Last fall, Burlington said its development of wells, pipelines and processing facilities represented a total investment of $1 billion by it and its partners over a 10-year period.

In October 2002, Burlington completed a Train III expansion project at the Lost Cabin Gas Plant, which enabled the plant to reach inlet flows of 310 MMcf/d. The project was seen as one of the final steps in development of the field, which the company believes contains some of the nation’s deepest and most productive onshore natural gas wells.

“The [Lost Cabin] plant is a world-class engineering achievement that transforms otherwise unusable gas into a safe, reliable and environmentally sound source of energy,” CEO Bobby Shackouls said last October.

The Train III processing facilities represented a $280 million capital investment that added inlet capacity of 180 MMcfe/d. The Lost Cabin plant processes gas from the Deep Madison formation, which lies at depths of up to 25,000 feet. Seven producing wells have been drilled into the formation and six currently are connected to the plant. The company said the wells are among the nation’s most productive onshore, with each capable of producing as much as 40 to 50 MMcfe/d. The field makes up about 3% of Burlington’s total gas production.

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