UPR slates big Colorado gas/helium project

• UPR's Colorado Gas, Helium Project [100600 bytes]

As part of an investment totaling about $100 million, UPR will develop several natural gas fields containing high helium concentrations. The project, near Cheyenne Wells, where UPR currently maintains an office near the Colorado-Kansas state line, will entail drilling gas wells, constructing a gathering/processing infrastructure, a gas processing plant, and a helium liquefaction complex. The complex will also produce natural gas liquids.

To be located on a 25-acre site in Cheyenne County, the plant will process 35 MMcfd of gas and produce liquid helium for high-technology, end-use processes. Capacity can be expanded to 50 MMcfd.

Praxair, Danbury, Conn., an industrial gas company, will purchase the liquid helium, which is used to cool super-conducting magnets in magnetic resonance imaging systems and in the fiber optic industry to manufacture fiber optic strands.

The complex will employ as many as 16 new personnel in addition to the 26-person staff assigned to UPR's Cheyenne Wells office. Construction will begin in third quarter 1997, and the complex is expected on stream by second quarter 1998.

Project rationale, plans

UPR said eastern Colorado gas, which has a high nitrogen content and low BTU value, historically has been transported via limited-capacity pipelines to gas and helium processing plants in Kansas, creating both operational and economic challenges.

"By developing the gas processing and helium complex in eastern Colorado, UPR has developed a solution that will be mutually beneficial to all eastern Colorado producers, as well as to the state of Colorado," UPR said. "The transmission costs will be substantially reduced, and capacity constraints will no longer exist."

The complex will utilize a cryogenic extraction process to recover NGL and helium from the inlet gas stream (see process schematic, p. 29). A pressure swing adsorption process will be used to purify the helium, which may then be marketed as Grade-A gaseous helium, or it may be liquefied through an additional cryogenic process at the plant.

UPR, active in eastern Colorado since 1979, currently operates 195 wells there. Its production from operated/ non-operated wells totals 6.1 MMcfd of gas, 4,050 b/d of oil, and 300 b/d of NGL.

UPR expects to drill 30 wells to support the planned infrastructure, and additional wells will be drilled on a continuing basis.