EMBARGOED Not for release before February 20, 2003

LARAMIE, WY—Backed by a comprehensive new report on directional drilling technologies, a handful of western conservation groups today asked the Bureau of Land Management to study directional drilling as a replacement for high-density development in three major gas fields in Wyoming.

According to the report, current directional drilling can reach sideways for up to 6½ miles, tapping oil and gas as deep as 20,000 feet in any geologic setting. The report cites industry studies showing that directional drilling actually produces oil in greater quantities than vertical wells, resulting in a potentially substantial increase in the nation’s petroleum reserves.

In the Powder River Basin, over 39,000 coalbed methane wells are planned over the next ten years for public lands and minerals on the Wyoming side of the basin alone. Coalbed methane production requires that water, often filled with salts and toxic compounds, be pumped out of the coal seam before the gas can be produced. "Directional drilling could allow the gas to be produced with far fewer wells, and these wells could be clustered on isolated sites to avoid carpeting the entire landscape with roads and facilities," said Erik Molvar of Biodiversity Conservation Alliance, who authored the report on directional drilling. "But this technology will do nothing to solve the problems caused by dumping millions of gallons of salty wastewater onto fields and into rivers and streams."

In the eastern half of the Red Desert, the Bureau of Land Management’s Great Divide Plan will govern oil and gas development over 3.5 million acres of federal lands, including important big game winter ranges. "We’re seeking special measures to will keep the drilling rigs away from crucial winter ranges and other sensitive habitats, and directional drilling can help achieve this goal," said Molvar.

In the upper Green River valley, huge gas fields already cover large sweeps of the landscape. Additional "infill drilling" is planned to fill in the gaps between existing wells. "This style of infill drilling would create a maze of roads and wells as dense as an urban subdivision, completely destroying the land," said Molvar. "Horizontal drilling would accomplish the same task from existing well sites, with minimal construction of new roads."

Long-reach directional drilling can produce oil and gas beneath sensitive landscapes while moving the impacts of drilling sites to distant locations, but is not a panacea. "There are some lands, like National Parks, National Wildlife Refuges, and uniquely spectacular public landscapes, where industrial development of any kind, even directional drilling, should not occur at all," states Gloria Flora of Sustainable Obtainable Solutions, the former Forest Supervisor who put one of the nation’s most treasured landscapes, Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front, off-limits to drilling. "But other public lands also have distinctive and fragile areas where directional drilling holds great promise for producing oil and gas without abandoning protections for sensitive habitats."

"The Bush Administration promised the nation a drilling policy featuring lower-impact technologies," notes Molvar. "Instead, what we’ve gotten is a rip-and-run mentality on public lands, featuring the most widespread, highest-impact drilling imaginable."

While acknowledging that many areas should remain off-limits to all types of drilling, the group called for the administration to study compact "cluster drilling" as an alternative to the sprawling fields of vertical wells that have overtaken much of the West’s open spaces, and implement these advanced methods whenever they would reduce impacts to the environment.

"Here in Colorado’s Gunnison Basin, we're faced with hundreds of gas wells, compressor stations and miles of new roads being pushed into pristine country," said Sandy Shea of High Country Citizens’ Alliance. "If we're serious about valuing our public lands for generations to come, oil and gas drilling will have to take place in a responsible manner. Drilling directionally can help us achieve this goal."

The demands to reduce drilling impacts were accompanied by an exhaustive review of petroleum industry studies showing that directional drilling is both economical and a technically feasible alternative to current high-impact industry practices, and may substantially reduce the impacts of oil and gas production. The report was authored by Biodiversity Conservation Alliance, a nonprofit conservation group based in Laramie, Wyoming. The report demonstrates that directional drilling is a feasible alternative to vertical drilling, which causes the high-density sprawl of roads and wells that has turned many western open spaces into industrial wastelands.

"These technologies are available today, they’re practical and cost-efficient, and they will often leave fewer scars on the land than high-density vertical drilling," says Molvar. "Even in cases where it costs more to drill directionally, these new methods should become the industry standard whenever wells are drilled. It should be part of the cost of doing business on public lands."