CHEYENNE - Earlier this month two large oil and gas companies announced that they are curtailing their drilling plans in Wyoming because of low natural gas prices and a lack of space in pipelines.

However, spokesmen with Questar Corp. and EnCana Corp. say the changes will not mean any job losses among their Wyoming employees.

Utah-based Questar employs about 300 people in Wyoming, and Calgary, Canada-based EnCana about 130.

Paul Matheny, vice president for Questar’s Rockies region, said the company is halting single-rig drilling operations near Wamsutter and southeast of Rock Springs until prices and pipeline capacity improves.

“The only thing we’re really going to be doing in Wyoming is developing our Pinedale project,” said Matheny, who’s based in Denver.

Questar will maintain its nine drilling rigs in the Pinedale
Anticline in Sublette County, he said.

“We have enough long-term plans up there that it’s hard to just pull them down,” Matheny said. “Our Wamsutter project was one rig for the whole year, so it wasn’t difficult to divert that somewhere else.”

EnCana spokesman Randy Teeuwen said his company was reviewing its drilling operations in Jonah field, which is next to the Pinedale Anticline, in southwest Wyoming.

“In general, we’re going to see some reduction in capital expenditure and our drilling program in Wyoming,” said Teeuwen, also based in Denver.

He said the curtailed drilling in Jonah will affect mostly
contract drilling rigs, and the company will work with drilling
contractors to assign wells elsewhere.

The situation should improve once the Rockies Express pipeline
being built is completed sometime next year, Teeuwen said. The
pipeline will carry gas produced in Wyoming to Ohio.

Bruce Hinchey, president of the Petroleum Association of
Wyoming, said Wyoming faces a Catch-22 situation with its
pipeline capacity and drilling.

Pipeline companies don’t want to build expensive, new pipelines
unless they are assured there is sufficient gas to transport,
he said.

But without the pipeline capacity, gas companies don’t want to
be stuck with the expense of drilling for gas that can’t be
transported to market at a profitable price.