DOUGLAS, Wyo. (AP) — Two companies aim to build a gas processing plant near Douglas that would reduce the need for flaring from oil wells in that east-central area of Wyoming. The Casper Star-Tribune reported Friday that the plant would be operated by Jackalope Gas Gathering System, a 50-50 joint venture between Houston-based Crestwood Midstream Partners and Oklahoma City-based Access Midstream.
The facility will be able to process 120 million cubic feet of gas a day from local oil wells. Many of those wells were just recently drilled into the Niobrara Shale underlying eastern Wyoming. The plant would remove natural gas liquids from the gas byproduct of local oil production, company officials told the newspaper. Right now, much of the gas from the newly drilled oil wells is flared — burned off into the atmosphere — because a system to collect the gas and get it to market doesn't yet exist.
Gas processed at the plant would be sent to market via pipeline, said Jimmie Hammontree, a regulatory affairs manager with Midstream Partners. People who live four miles southwest of Douglas where the plant would be built say they don't like how the plant would include four or five gas-fired compressor engines. Electric motors would be more efficient, local rancher Bob Kayser said.
"The recent guidance from the EPA is you should consider energy efficiency," Kayser said. The Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality has proposed to approve the plant's air pollution permit but will review public comments on the issue, department officials said.