Parachute – EnCana Oil and Gas USA has started building a huge natural-gas treatment plant in Western Colorado that will help open northwestern Colorado’s rich gas reserves to new markets.
EnCana’s plant near Parachute should be completed in 2007 and will process up to 650 million cubic feet of gas daily.
Company spokesman Doug Hock said EnCana’s daily production from the Piceance Basin is about 330 million cubic feet.
“One of the big challenges facing us as production has grown is the lack of capacity and infrastructure,” Hock said.
The plant will separate the gas from byproducts and remove water, which prevents freezing in the pipelines and maintains flow.
About 600 people will work on the plant and associated pipelines, according to the environmental analysis of the project done by the Bureau of Land Management. Up to 15 people will run the plant once it’s built.
EnCana president Roger Biemans told the Colorado Oil and Gas Conference last summer that the Rocky Mountain region “is coming to the forefront as a key domestic source.”
The 6,000-square-mile Pi ceance Basin is a major focus of that production. It straddles Interstate 70 and the Colorado River in Garfield and Mesa counties and extends north into Rio Blanco County and south into Delta and Gunnison counties.
