Southwestern Wyoming is potentially home to 1.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas resources according to the U.S. Geological Survey, possibly strengthening the state’s energy industry.
The news was announced by the USGS on Monday, is located in the Permian Phosphoria Formation within the Southwestern Wyoming Province – a wide-ranging area near the state’s borders with Idaho and Utah.
The USGS says the reserves are as much as 10,000 meters deep and calls them “technically recoverable.”
Christopher Schnek of the USGS, the lead author of the report, told Western Wire that there are still “lots of unknowns” about the potential size and development in the area.
This will be good news to natural gas operators in Wyoming – a state with a strong oil and gas sector that drives economic growth.
Data from the Energy Information Administration shows that Wyoming is a top 10 natural gas producing state and “has 16 of the largest U.S. natural gas fields, including 2 in the top 10.”
There was more than 1.5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas produced across the state in 2018.
As Western Wire has previously reported, development on public lands plays a big role in the state. The Bureau of Land Management, which overseas these operations, saw record revenue and production from public leasing with Wyoming and New Mexico alone combining to account for two-thirds of new permits processed by BLM, as well as two-thirds of all new well activity.
A recent BLM lease sale raised $22 million with half of that revenue going to the state to fund public services and a report from the Interior Department showed that economic activity on public lands, including energy development, contributed nearly $15 billion to Wyoming’s GDP.