Chapter 6: Coalbed Methane

Although mines in the U.S. have been venting coal gas intentionally since the 19th century, the production and sale of methane from coalbed wellbores is a relatively recent development. Methane was produced from a few coal seam wells in Wyoming, Kansas, and West Virginia during the early part of the twentieth century; however, the first deliberate attempts to complete wells as coalbed-methane (CBM) producers did not occur until the early 1950s in the San Juan basin of New Mexico. These wells targeted the Fruitland coal seams, which previously were viewed as a high-pressure hazard overlying deeper conventional oil and gas targets. Gas production development from the Fruitland coal seams languished until the mid-1970s when an energy crisis in the U.S. encouraged feasibility studies and investment. In the late 1970s, several companies completed wells in the Fruitland coal seams and found high gas contents and production rates of several hundred Mscf/D. ¹  At approximately the same time, several dozen CBM wells were drilled to degas coal seams adjacent to mines in Alabama’s Black Warrior basin.