The public has a chance to comment through mid-October about a relaunched natural gas project to be built in Uintah County, UT, according to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) field office in Vernal, UT.

Stewart Petroleum Corp.’s Tumbleweed II project is to be located on about 7,600 acres around 32 miles south of Ouray, UT. In a draft environmental analysis (EA) of the project, BLM evaluated up to nine deep, exploratory gas wells that would be drilled from seven well pads. About 12 miles of gas pipeline would be constructed, and four miles of roads would be upgraded or added. Total surface disturbance would be about 45 acres.

Stewart Petroleum plans “to explore for, test and potentially develop natural gas from the Dakota, Entrada and Wingate geologic formations, and if successful, produce commercial quantities of oil and/or gas under the terms and stipulations of Stewart’s federal leases,” BLM said.

The proposed project is more than two years old. While the project was undergoing a final review by federal officials, the Vernal Field Office in October 2007 issued a draft supplemental report for its 2005 Draft Vernal Resource Management Plan/Environmental Impact Statement (RMP/EIS). The supplemental report, to address Utah’s burgeoning natural gas and oil development, was written to determine land use plans for around 1.7 million acres of public land and 1.9 million acres of subsurface mineral estate lands around the Book Cliffs, Uinta Mountains and the Uinta Basin (see Daily GPI, Oct. 16, 2007).

A month after the draft supplemental report was issued, the first Tumbleweed proposal was remanded by state officials. Stewart Petroleum then revised the proposal and renamed it, BLM said.

The Vernal Final RMP/EIS was enacted in October 2008, and it determined that, with few concessions, “wilderness quality” lands in the Uinta Mountains and basin area could coexist with oil and natural gas production and outdoor enthusiasts. In keeping with the final RMP/EIS, BLM said the draft EA for Tumbleweed II analyzes four alternatives: proposed action alternative, no action alternative, buried pipeline alternative and additional directional drilling alternative.

“The management objective of the approved RMP for energy resources is to encourage and facilitate the development by private industry of public land mineral resources in a manner that satisfies national and local needs and provides for economical and environmentally sound exploration, extraction and reclamation practices,” BLM said. Implementing the proposed action alternative, buried pipeline alternative or the additional directional drilling alternative “would respond to this objective by allowing Stewart to explore natural gas resources in the Tumbleweed Project Area, while avoiding, minimizing or mitigating the potential effects of construction, drilling, completion and operational activities on biotic and abiotic resources.”

After the public comment period ends Oct. 16, the draft EA is to be finalized, and BLM said it would issue its decision.

©Copyright 2009Intelligence Press Inc. All rights reserved. The preceding news reportmay not be republished or redistributed, in whole or in part, in anyform, without prior written consent of Intelligence Press, Inc.