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Beyond boom & bust: Energy industry rebounding, seeing steady growth – Methane booming in Montana

With oil prices hovering close to $50 a barrel and natural gas selling for around $9 per thousand cubic feet (mcf) at the retail level, consumers grumble when they fuel up the SUV or turn up the thermostat. But energy-producing states like Montana, Wyoming and Alaska are enjoying a bonanza in new jobs and increased tax revenue from higher oil and gas production.

Coal seams hundreds of feet below the rolling hills of southeastern Montana have played a key role in Montana’s resurgent energy industry for more than five years, yielding clean-burning natural gas that’s shipped throughout the region.

Each day the 420 wells in Fidelity Energy & Production Co.’s CX field there generate 36 million cubic feet of natural gas, enough fuel to supply a city of 50,000 people.

By TOM HOWARD
Of The Gazette Staff

Full Story: http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?id=1&display=rednews/2005/01/23/build/state/30-beyond-boom-and-bust.inc

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State steps up CBM enforcement

By DUSTIN BLEIZEFFER
Star-Tribune energy reporter

GILLETTE — Wyoming officials are stepping up enforcement efforts in light of rampant environmental violations in the coal-bed methane industry.

The state engineer’s office recently found that 153 of 217 "on-channel" water storage reservoirs in one drainage alone were not properly permitted. The agency is asking operators to "cease storage" until the reservoirs are brought into compliance — an action that could potentially suspend some gas production.

"What we found was stunning," State Engineer Patrick Tyrell said Monday. "We’d had allegations that reservoirs weren’t all being permitted. And that was the reason we went to the Legislature to get funding for this inspection, because we didn’t have the personnel that it would take to thoroughly inspect a drainage."

http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2005/01/11/news/wyoming/da95acc7755bccc987256f8600088dea.txt

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