This chapter describes the methodology and geologic findings of assessments of regional gas accumulations in the Greater Green River and Wind River basins that were conducted at the U.S. Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory (DOE-NETL). These assessments were undertaken to better understand the nature and remaining potential of key elements of the nation's natural-gas resource base. The resource assessments of DOE-NETL are unique in that they are not designed to estimate recoverability under either current or most likely future conditions. Instead, these assessments feature a detailed geologic characterization of the potential resource (a large fraction of the in-place resource) from which computer models can be used to estimate technically and economically recoverable resources for a variety of alternative future technology and market scenarios.

This chapter focuses on data collected for selected parts of regional gas accumulations in the Greater Green River and Wind River basins. These results indicate the distribution of interpreted in-place resources by depth and by estimated porosity, permeability, and water saturation. Among other findings, the data confirm that a vast part of the remaining resource occurs in low-porosity formations with elevated water saturations. Also presented is an overview of the modeling results that indicates the sensitivity of resource recoverability to selected improvements in technology-related parameters.