TribTown

Pre-construction services for the Pioneer Wind Park wind farm in the uplands of the Northern Laramie Range will be conducted by three Casper-area engineering firms; WLC Engineering, Surveying and Planning; Civil Engineering Professionals Inc.; and Terracon Consulting Engineers and Scientists.

Utah-based Wasatch Wind, the developer of Pioneer Wind Park, announced the decision on Wednesday, highlighting the fact that all three firms have strong local ties. The move acknowledges a growing sentiment in the region to hire local, which played out this summer when an out-of-state contractors were considered to head a business incubator project in Casper.

"We are excited about our new partners in WLC, CEPI and Terracon. We hope that these three companies are the first of many local businesses and residents that will benefit directly from the development of the proposed Pioneer Wind Park," Wasatch Wind director of development, Christine Mikell, said in a prepared statement.

Yet, there's little doubt that opposition to the wind farm itself will continue. The Northern Laramie Range Alliance was formed about a year ago to kill plans for any and all wind development in the uplands.

If a Halliburton vehicle creeps over the speed limit, or a driver inside the vehicle doesn't click the seatbelt, a black box in the vehicle records the infraction. It may even send an instant message to a manager's cell phone.

Some people may regard the system as overly invasive. But when it comes to safety, Dennis Gladwin said Halliburton wants its employees to understand that their company cares.

"We've trained them and our process works," said Gladwin, district manager for Halliburton's Casper office.

Gladwin spoke at the 2nd Annual Safety Summit and Trade Show in Casper on Wednesday, sponsored by the Wyoming Contractors Association, Petroleum Association of Wyoming, Wyoming Trucking Association, Wyoming & Montana Safety Council and the Wyoming Oil & Gas Industry Safety Alliance.

Gladwin explained Halliburton's high-tech "Journey Management" program designed to ensure safety on the road. Although Halliburton shed a lot of jobs in Wyoming in 2009, the company is hiring again. Next year, Halliburton expects to have 720 employees based at its Casper office, and up to 900 based at its Rock Springs office.

Already, Halliburton deploys approximately 500 vehicles from Casper and 500 from Rock Springs, and they travel a lot of miles. Thus the need for a coordinated safety plan for daily travel, said Gladwin.

Cnooc, a state-run Chinese oil and gas company, has agreed to buy a third of Chesapeake Energy's assets in a Texas shale deposit. Industry analysts speculate China's main interest is not to ship American oil and gas to China, but rather to gain technical expertise in plumbing its own "shale" oil and gas resources.

Chesapeake made its arrival in Wyoming last year, buying up tens of thousands of mineral lease acres in eastern Wyoming, targeting shale oil deposits.

Some folks are uneasy with the Cnooc deal because, well, it doesn't seem right that a communist-controlled government hold sway over any portion of America's energy assets. Yet the business of energy is increasingly global. Many companies that tap into Wyoming's oil, natural gas, coal, wind and uranium are based overseas or at least operate internationally.

There wasn't much complaining about the fact that a lot of Wyoming's uranium assets are held by Canadian mining companies. Then the Russian-controlled Atomredmetzoloto (ARMZ) agreed to buy a controlling interest in Uranium One, which has a huge presence in Wyoming uranium.

As with Cnooc's interest in Texan shale deposits, ARMZ might be more interested in Uranium One's in-situ recovery technology. ARMZ isn't likely to ship Wyoming uranium to Russia. If the Uranium One deal is approved, ARMZ will also have access Uranium One's uranium reserves in Kazakhstan, and it makes more sense to tap those reserves rather than ship a product from Wyoming.

Welcome to the flat, globalized world of energy. It's as complex as the global challenge of climate change.

Here's an interesting question; If you don't like Chinese-controlled companies buying American oil and gas shale deposits, or Russian-controlled companies holding uraniun assets in Wyoming, then what do you think of Powder River Basin coal going to China? An American company - St. Louis-based Peabody Energy - says it is already shipping small doses of PRB coal to China.

Today I spoke with Janet Gellici, CEO of the American Coal Council. She said we can expect to see more American coal going to China in the near future.

"It certainly is one of the more promising markets for American coal producers," said Gellici.

Peabody Energy is already shipping small amounts of Powder River Basin coal to China and Korea, but it's not clear whether Cowboy coal will be able to compete for the Asian market in large volumes against competitors in Australia and Indonesia.

This week, Salt Lake City-based Millennium Bulk Logistics said it wants to buy a private port operator in Washington, and use it to ship Powder River Basin coal from a yet-to-be-developed mine here.

Industry analysts say it's easy to understand the desire to shuttle PRB coal to western ports. The demand for coal in China and India continues to grow substantially. For decades China was a net coal exporter. Then it went from exporting a total 90 million tons (give or take) in 2008 to importing 100 million tons in 2009.

Despite the low-cost recovery of PRB coal, rail and sea transportation to China likely is not going to compete with coal from Australia and Indonesia, according to Dick Price, industry analyst with Hudson Securities.

"It's probably at the (economic) margin given the logistic issues," Price said in a phone interview on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, anyone who can float their coal to China's ports will have a buyer. Industry experts say China is plagued with its own overland coal transportation problems. Its largest coal supply districts are in the central region of the country, and there are train and truck bottlenecks on the way to the large city centers on China's East Coast.

So even if it's not quite economic to ship PRB coal to China, I'm sure BNSF Railway and Union Pacific could export their coal rail technology.

In the past year Casper geologist Mark Doelger has been involved in wind energy (consulting for Pathfinder Renewable Wind Energy LLC) and uranium (Stakeholder Energy). These ventures in clean(er) energy have provoked a good deal of ribbing from his colleagues in traditional fossil fuels. But that's OK, says Doelger.

"If someone wants to buy it and I sell it, I don't see the harm," said Doelger.

Besides, Doelger isn't lacking any street-cred in the oil and gas business. He's the most recent recipient of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists' Public Service Award for his many years of promoting the industry, including his work at the Wyoming Pipeline Authority.

Uranium One USA officials say that it's highly unlikely that any uranium derrived from its planned in-situ mining operations in Wyoming will go to Russia or Iran despite a pending deal for Russian-based Atomredmetzoloto (ARMZ) to acquire a controlling interest in the company.

"U.S. operations will not be affected by this transaction," Donna Wichers, Uranium One's senior vice president of in-situ mining told the Star-Tribune via email. "ARMZ is interested in our Kazakhstan reserves. The U.S. properties are simply part of Uranium One's portfolio of properties worldwide."

In Wyoming, Uranium One, a Canadian subsidiary, owns the Christensen Ranch and Irigaray in-situ leach operations in the southern Powder River Basin where it plans to resume mining operations. The company is also fulfilling permitting duties to launch ISR operations at its Moore Ranch and Ludeman properties in the same region.

Critics of the acquisition by ARMZ - which has been in the works since June - suggest it is a potential national security issue because it would give a Russian company controlling interest in about 20 percent of the United States' uranium mining capacity.

ARMZ is controlled by the Russian Atomic Energy Corp. (Rosatom), an agency of the Russian government that has supplied uranium to Iran's first nuclear power plant.

However, some U.S. national security officials have said the deal poses no threat. The Cold War is no more, and the uranium fuel industry is among several interenational markets.

"I have confirmed with our management that none of the uranium produced in the U.S. will be used by Rosatom to fuel the Iran reactor," said Wichers. "I am almost certain that all of our produced U.S. uranium will be sold to U.S. utilities. Why would Russia want our small U.S. production, ship it over there, etc., when they have access to the huge volumes of Kazakhstan material which makes the U.S. material look like a drop in the bucket?"

Uranium One's U.S. assets will be managed by its existing American team, and the company will continue to be publicly traded on the Canadian exchange, according to the company. Uranium One plans to resume uranium production in Wyoming in 2011 and gradually ramp up annual production to about 2 million pounds per year, employing some 200 workers, according to company officials.

Last year when I asked Kristen Juve, what's the most dangerous thing you've ever done on the job, she said not wearing flame-resistant clothing. Nowadays Juve, a location supervisor for EnCana Oil & Gas USA, never climbs onto a rig without donning flame-resistant coveralls. Juve is among a growing - and majority - number of more safety-oriented workers in the industry.

However, their corporate managers and attorneys sometimes view mandates regarding safety through a lense made up of politics, profits and legalese. The Occupational Safety & Health Administration may require workers in oil and gas drilling to wear flame-resistant clothing. The federal requirement is meeting opposition by several industry groups, including the American Petroleum Institute.

"We want to make sure you're not exposing employees to consistent heat exhaustion issues," API spokesman Erik Milito told the Star-Tribune on Friday.

API, and others, are also concerned about the process in which OSHA is implementing the rule. Milito said the drilling industry was mostly left out of OSHA's deliberations.

"In the past we've been able to have an ongoing dialogue with OSHA and industry so we can work through the issues," Milito said.

Another concern listed by industry is whether small companies can afford to provide enough flame-resistant clothing in time to comply with the regulation.

Over several years of suffering the worst-in-the-nation workplace fatality rate, Wyoming lawmakers have resisted calls to clarify workplace liability and increase OSHA fines for wanton violators.

This summer industry formed the Wyoming Oil and Gas Safety Alliance, pledging a more collaborative relationship with Wyoming OSHA and even a plan to implement non-enforceable industry safety standards. No word yet about whether the group would encourage the federal OSHA flame-resistant clothing mandate.

While expressing heartache over the lack of bricks-and-morter results from recent investments in advanced coal technologies, a handful of state lawmakers also questioned whether it's worthwhile to maintain a dialogue between University of Wyoming leaders and their colleagues in China regarding coal technologies.

"Are we wasting our time trying to deal with China and get their participation?" said Sen. Grant Larson, R-Jackson, co-chairman of the Joint Minerals, Business and Economic Development Interim Committee.

During the committee's session on Monday, GE Energy's Rob Wallace suggested that despite some difficulties regarding intellectual property and government redtape, Wyoming must continue government, university and private enterprise ties with China.

"China is such a dominating market in the world we can't ignore them," said Wallace. "The degree you're able to establish relationships and keep a dialogue going, I don't see a downside to it."

Another GE Energy official told committee members that the United States is trailing China in the development of advanced coal and renewable energy deployment. Without a robust technology exchange between the two coal superpowers, the U.S. may end up buying the technology from China rather than exporting it, said Keith A. White, director of GE's coal gasification business.

After dropping 7 percent from 2008 to 2009, Wyoming's coal production seems to be holding steady, according to Marion Loomis, executive director of the Wyoming Mining Association.

The slide in coal production continued into the first part of 2010, but has since increased to parallel 2009 levels, he said. Wyoming mines dug and shipped about 430 million tons of coal in 2009 and remains the nation's largest source of coal. About half of the nation's electrical generation is fueled by coal.

Loomis noted that despite the 7 percent decline in Wyoming coal production in 2009, the industry still contributed increased revenues to the state - from about $1.1 billion in 2008 to $1.2 billion in 2009.

He said the revenue increase was due to strong pricing. Currently, spot prices for Powder River Basin coal remains strong - more than $14 per ton, according to the Energy Information Administration.

The Minerals, Business and Economic Development Interim Committee has dropped the 2010-leftover bill known as "coal value-added facilities tax exemptions." The bill had passed out of committee during the 2010 Legislature but was set aside when Black Hills Power dropped plans to develop an oxy-combustion coal-fired power plant.

One of the main backers of the bill has been Rep. Tom Lockhart, R-Casper, a retired PacifiCorp executive and current member of Arch Coal Inc.'s board of directors. He's also co-chairman of the Minerals Committee.

However, his co-chair, Sen. Grant Larson, R-Jackson, was not reserved about his opposition.

"I absolutely detest sales tax exemptions," Grant said during the committee's Monday session.