About Coalbed Methane
The Basics
Coalbed Methane (CBM) is the gas that canaries were traditionally used to detect in underground coal mines. Methane is ‘natural’ gas which is trapped in coal seams and “adsorbed” or held in coal seams by water pressure. The water usually found in these porous seams has to be removed before the CBM can “desorb” from the coal and bubble up to a well on the surface.
Many wells are used to penetrate the seams with enough fractures to remove water quickly and to release economically viable quantities of the gas. As a result well densities are much higher than with traditional natural gas. The required infrastructure for CBM fields is also more intense and the impact on wildlife is devastating. Scientists have found that full field CBM development destroys wildlife habitat.
British Columbia’s southern Rocky Mountains is not an appropriate area for CBM extraction. The resulting industrialization of the landscape would destroy critical wildlife habitat and cut off the last connection for key species like threatened grizzly bears from more abundant northern populations.
The Threats
BP Canada, the subsidiary of British Petroleum which is one of the biggest companies in the world, has envisioned a vast CBM field that would cover more than five hundred square kilometres covering significant portions of the Elk River watershed. If BP’s “Mist Mountain” CBM proposal is allowed to proceed by the provincial government a sprawling network of 100 x 100 meter well pads, service roads, waste water and gas pipelines and noisy compression and processing stations would industrialize the heart of our wild Rockies. BP Canada intends to spend $100 million in the next five years the vast majority of which will pay for the drilling of up to twenty five wells. There will also be money for public relations and some environmental work but thus far company representatives have refused to accept input from independent scientists as to how the critical baseline assessment work will be conducted.
Meanwhile Canada’s largest independent oil and gas producer Encana and their managing partner Strom Cat Energy are drilling and pumping gas and water at their pilot operation near the headwaters of the Elk River. Encana’s thirty thousand hectare lease has had over twenty wells drilled in the last seven years. Storm Cat is touting the potential of this ‘play’ on their website where they say they will make a decision weather to go to commercial production by the end of 2007. The water produced from these wells is dumped into a tributary of the Elk River and has been proven to be toxic to fish. Despite numerous incidents of failing government required bioassays, which are toxicity tests preformed on baby rainbow trout, the surface disposal of this toxic produced water has been 'grandfathered' by the British Columbia Oil and Gas Commission. The special exemption from a new policy introduced in the 2007 update to the B.C. Energy Plan that requires all produced CBM water to be deep well re-injected has not been adequately explained by officials with the British Columbia Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources.
The MEMPR are so desperate to get CBM going in B.C. they have instituted a net profit royalty program. This means that any company that is actually able to start selling CBM on the international commodity market will be able to pay off all of their capitol expenses before they pay one penny in royalties back to the people of B.C. who actually own the gas.
The following document provides a good overview of the coalbed methane industry and its impacts:
Coalbed Methane: A Citizen's Guide (West Coast Environmental Law)
There is currently no commercial coalbed methane production in B.C. In 2003, the Union of BC Municipalities passed a resolution calling for a moratorium on CBM development.
