CASPER, Wyo.—A company that sought to exploit naturally occurring underground microbes to develop a long-lasting supply of natural gas from the coal fields of northeast Wyoming has filed for bankruptcy.
Golden, Colo.-based Luca Technologies, Inc., filed for federal Chapter 11 bankruptcy July 15. The filing lists several Wyoming businesses and state agencies as creditors.
Luca had more than 100 employees at its peak but its investors asked Luca executives to lay off all but three employees, company attorney Matt Micheli told the Casper Star-Tribune ( ) for a story published Wednesday.
The company struggled to get federal permits and then ran into financial trouble after natural gas prices hit 10-year lows in 2012.
“Any time you have something that’s brand new, that’s never been done before, it takes a lot of time and resources and money to get it through and build a regulatory framework that allows that technology to be implemented,” Micheli said.
The company sought to restore gas production from existing, depleted coal-bed methane wells in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin. Coal-bed methane wells are relatively small, shallow wells that extract gas from coal seams saturated with groundwater.
Luca pumped nutrients into the coal seams. The nutrients stimulated naturally occurring microbes that feed on coal and produce natural gas.
The company tested its technology on more than 400 wells in the Powder River Basin beginning in 2006. Company officials said the process increased production from the wells and promised to keep them productive at a low but more or less steady rate for decades to come.
The company’s listed assets include intellectual property and an interest in more than 1,300 gas wells.
According to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Luca’s investors were Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, One Equity Partners, Oxford Bioscience Partners and BASF Venture Capital.
Company officials expect the bankruptcy process to take about 90 days.
The company was well-received in Wyoming, where it successfully lobbied the Legislature to pass a bill that established rules for methane farming.
“I’ll say one thing. They had a heck of a good idea,” said John M. Kennedy, CEO of Kennedy Oil in Gillette, which is listed as a creditor. “And there’s a lot of people who believe that this is a possibility and it’s kind of the wave of the future.”
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Information from: Casper (Wyo.) Star-Tribune,
