Jonah Field

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Jonah Field is a large natural gas field in Sublette County, Wyoming in the United States. The field is approximately 32 miles south of Pinedale in Southwestern Wyoming, and is estimated to contain 10.5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Managed by the Bureau of Land Management, the field has a productive area of 21,000 acres.

Jonah Field was discovered by geolgist Ed Warner working with McMurry Oil. The field proved viable after the drilling of the McMurry Oil Company Jonah-Federal #1-5 in January, 1993 where McMurry placed their operations office.

The major gas companies currently developing the field are the EnCana Corporation, BP. and Shell. The Jonah Field is known for being among the first fields where natural gas from deep, “tight sand” formations has been profitably extracted. Hydraulic fracturing is used to open the tight sand formations that exist more than a mile underground, which allows more gas to be recovered. The breakthroughs employed in Jonah have allowed numerous other on-shore fields to become open to development.

The presense of natural gas in and around the county known as Sublette County was known for years, but it was not deemed practical to extract. El Paso Natural Gas Company in the 1970's in cooperation with Federal Government of the United States and the Atomic Energy Commission proposed a project called Wagon Wheel Nuclear Stimulation Project which was an attempt to detonate 5 small nuclear explosions to fracture the sands and enable natural gas production. The project was abandonded and the Jonah Field and surrounding areas including the Pinedale Anticline were left undeveloped for years.

Other active gas companies involved in the Jonah Field include Ultra Petroleum and Yates Petroleum and several independants.

Other large natural gas fields in and around Sublette Country, Wyoming include the Wamsutter gas field and several sour gas H2S fields operated by Exxon.