Company to drill for natural gas

A Colorado oil company hopes to be drilling an exploratory well in Wahkiakum County by this fall.

Pat Moran, land manager for Venoco, Inc., told Wahkiakum County commissioners Tuesday the from hopes to find a field of natural gas under the county.

Through an affiliated company, the firm has leased mineral rights to lands owned or managed by the Washington Department of Natural Resources in the county, he said.

Moran has also been negotiating with private land owners and timber companies for rights in other areas.

"We've been up East Valley, Middle Valley and the Elochoman Valley," he said.

The State of Washington will handle permitting for the test well, he said. As a company geologist is still trying to determine the best location for a test well, the company hasn't applied for permits for the test well.

If sufficient high quality natural gas were found, the company would expect to install a pipeline to carry the gas to a commercial pipeline at Port Westward near Clatskanie.

"We'd negotiate with landowners for the right of way for the pipeline," he said, adding, "we don't have the right of condemnation by emminent domain."

If wells were drilled, the subterranean chambers holding the gas could also be used as storage areas once their supply had been pumped out, Moran said. This is occuring across the Columbia in the Mist gas field.

"There's a bare bones chance we'll find oil or gas; in the industry, only about one well in 20 is successful," he said.

Commissioners Blair Brady, Dan Cothren and George Trott posed some questions to Moran and related potential problems with using some of the DNR managed timberland with nesting habitat for marbled murrellets, an endangered sea bird. Trucking and other noisy industrial activity is limited to the hours 9 a.m. to dusk, Cothren said.

Moran said he had worked with endangered species and the US Fish and Wildlife Service in siting wells in the Scaramento River Delta of California.

In response to a question from Brady, Moran said Venoco has a slight relationship in California with NorthernStar Natural Gas, who is applying for permits to build a liquefied natural gas reciving facility at Bradwood, across the Columbia from Puget Island. NorthernStar is using a platform owned by Venoco, he said.