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Show ..Editor's Note: Energy Focus is a column written by the Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States (IPAMS). IPAMS welcomes questions regarding energy development develop-ment for the Energy Focus column. Questions should be directed to IPAMS Energy Focus, 1214 Denver Club Building, Denver, Colo. 80202. IPAMS will attempt to answer all questions which are sent in, either through the column which will be in this newspaper or through direct correspondence. Q. After drilling and finding "significant" natural gas wells in our immediate (Utah) area, why did the company drop many acres of leases and why haven't they produced the gas? - Mickey Gastworth, Cypress, CA. A. The "significant" gas may not be commercial, or economic to drill for and produce, based on depth, production rates, recoverable gas in place, extent of the gas-bearing formation, for-mation, quality of the gas and other factors. Had these been positive, the company wouldn't have dropped the leases. It would have drilled them. Natural gas wells, unlike oil wells, must be hooked to a pipeline before they can be produced. The wells in your area may be some distance from a natural gas pipeline. Unless recoverable reserves are sufficient to justify the cost of building a line to connect them, the wells can't be produced. (A rule-of-thumb is one billion cubic feet of gas reserves for each mile of pipeline). Q. Also, what is the usual royalty on private land on which the government has reserved the oil and mineral rights - Mickey Gastworth, Cypress, CA.. A. None. If the government has reserved the oil and mineral rights, the government owns the royalty on any oil. gas or mineral production. Q. How many of our 50 states are gas or oil producing? - Ralph A. McGinnis, Seattle, WA. A. Thirty three. The latest is Oregon, where natural gas was discovered this year. Nonproducing states are Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Delaware, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Idaho, Washington and Hawaii. |