No one even remotely involved in natural gas production on Colorado’s Western Slope wants to continue to party like it’s 1999. Back then prices were below $2 per million British thermal units and there were just 94 well starts in Garfield County.

Last year, prices continued to languish below $2 per million British thermal units (from a high of more than $13 in 2008), and there were only 173 well starts in Garfield County — the lowest number since 1999. Earlier this year, after draconian staffing cuts on both the Western Slope and Denver in 2015, the county’s biggest drilling company -— WPX Energy — sold all its Piceance Basin holdings.

And while Democrats at the state Legislature continue to seek more regulation and greater local control over drilling operations on the Front Range and citizen activist groups tout anti-fracking ballot initiatives, Republicans and even some Democrats in the hard-hit gas fields of Garfield, Mesa and Rio Blanca counties keep searching for any possible way to reignite the industry.

Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper earlier this month fired off a letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission requesting a rehearing of the previously rejected proposal for the Jordan Cove liquefied natural gas terminal and Pacific Connector Pipeline Project.

In the works since 2013 and heavily backed by Grand Junction energy interests, Jordan Cove is a proposed LNG shipping terminal at Coos Bay, Oregon, which would be connected via 232 miles of new pipeline into the existing Ruby Pipeline that runs from Oregon to Wyoming and could transport Colorado gas.

“In denying the project, FERC will not only be denying the positive economic benefits to the development areas, it will also be denying the far-reaching benefits beyond the Pacific Northwest,” Hickenlooper wrote. “The project terminal is the only LNG facility on the West Coast that would directly link Colorado to new energy markets via the Ruby Pipeline.”

Those new energy markets include recent deals between Jordan Cove, which is owned by Canadian company Veresen, and Japanese JERA Co., the world’s largest LNG buyer, and Itochu, another Japanese energy giant. Those deals weren’t in place before the FERC rejected Jordan Cove last month based on a lack of proven buyers for its product.

David Ludlam, executive director of the West Slope Colorado Oil & Gas Association, earlier this week praised Hickenlooper’s support for the project that the Grand Junction business community has been tracking and backing for three years now — ever since a Colorado Mesa University and Grand Junction Economic Partnership study identified Jordan Cove as the region’s best bet for reaching new markets and boosting the moribund industry.

“The opponents of this project are so myopic and narrow and very much limited to where the terminal is actually being built,” Ludlam told The Colorado Statesman. “This project to me is the opposite of that. It’s a project that transcends those traditional political boundaries. This is the anti-Keystone. It’s a project that has support from Democrats and Republicans alike.”

Both Colorado senators, Republican Cory Gardner and Democrat Michael Bennet, also signed onto Hickenlooper’s letter, as did the House member for the region, Republican Scott Tipton. But the FERC denial wasn’t based solely on a lack of market for LNG exports,

According to the FERC rejection, “Pacific Connector Pipeline would impact 157.3 miles of privately-owned lands, held by approximately 630 landowners (54 of which have intervened).” Landowners feared negative economic impacts, and the FERC concluded that, without LNG contracts, the project wasn’t in the public interest.

“So now FERC is in a sort of a political giveaway to certain constituencies and denied the project on such narrow grounds that it’s hard to imagine that with Gov. Hickenlooper’s support … and now with arguably the world’s two best customers for LNG, that FERC’s going to be able to deny it again,” Ludlam said. “But political appointees are political appointees, and by nature it’s a political process.”

Ludlam added that Veresen officials were planning to be in Grand Junction this month touting the project to business leaders and local media. The Pacific Connector Pipeline is being proposed by Oklahoma-based Williams Partners, which used to own WPX Energy’s Piceance holdings. Ludlam says it’s not a given that natural gas producers in the region would land the contracts if and when Jordan Cove is approved, but he said local producers would be very competitive.

“We’re going to leave no stone unturned as far as advocating for this project, because frankly there’s no other energy infrastructure project west of the Continental Divide that is as important as this one for the Piceance Basin,” Ludlam said.

In an interview with The Statesman earlier this legislative session, state Sen. Ray Scott, R-Grand Junction, said there’s really not much the Legislature can do to turn around the gas-price slump and start to move some of the gas glut currently in storage because of limited demand.

“How do we export our LNG and coal and get it over there, because they have a demand in Asia?” Scott said. “Those are the big questions that we’ve got to get people to work on at the federal and state level, and the industry obviously has to be involved as well to see if we can make something work.”

— davido@realvail.com