Coalbed methane (CBM) now accounts for approximately 7% of the gas production in the United States, and 9% of the nation's dry gas reserves. Some 15,000 coalbed methane wells have been drilled, mostly in the Rocky Mountain region. CBM from Western Canada, Alaska and across the lower 48 will substantially increase all those figures. A huge volume of this undeveloped gas will come from basins in which CBM plays are just emerging, throughout North America. This volume of Petroleum Frontiers and subsequent issues are devoted to these nascent CBM basins. Today's CBM reserves, on the other hand, are focused in a few established areas, especially the San Juan, Powder River, Uinta, Raton and Black Warrior basins. A brief summary of CBM resources in these producing areas provides a frame of reference for the emerging basins. Each of the basins is unique, and their CBM resources are distinctive, but they share characteristics that are common across essentially all coalbed methane areas (both producing and frontier). CBM production will be established across North America by the creative exploitation of new economics, new plays or areas in producing basins, new technologies, deeper plays, new basins, new (or rejected) concepts, and other sources.
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