Orphaned oil and gas wells across the U.S. are posing a major threat to communities, releasing harmful methane emissions that contribute to climate change and impacting the respiratory health of nearby residents. Now, the cost of plugging these wells is creating another massive problem for Americans as the financial burden of plugging orphaned wells is left to the states – and ultimately the taxpayers.
Tackling oil and gas wells before they are orphaned and abandoned is key to curbing emissions and avoiding hefty plugging costs.
Well Plugging Costs at a Glance
When oil operators go bankrupt, their wells are then considered “orphaned.” Without an owner or operator, the wells become the responsibility of the state to properly plug and abandon. There are approximately 130,000 documented orphan wells and potentially as many as 1 million undocumented orphaned wells in the U.S.
But shutting orphaned wells down isn’t easy… or cheap. In fact, Texas recently requested a whopping $100 million to tackle this issue. According to a Carbon Tracker report, California would require an estimated 7 billion dollars in funding to plug its orphaned wells. In Pennsylvania, the price tag would be 15 billion dollars. Oklahoma? A steep 31 billion dollars.
And with more gas processing centers going out of business– like Colorado’s Third Creek pipelines, which left the state with another 200+ orphaned wells– the number of wells that need to be plugged only continues to grow.
Early Decommissioning: Key to Prevention
Ultimately, the existence of orphaned wells is a symptom of a greater problem: failing to address low-producing, high-emitting marginal wells while they’re still in the hands of their operators. Not only do marginal wells have a greater effect on our climate than orphaned wells, but they also are much easier to decommission.
There’s a famous saying that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” If marginal wells are plugged before they become orphaned, we can prevent the creation of new orphaned wells, and states can save billions of dollars in taxpayer liabilities.
ClimateWells’ projects target old marginal wells, enabling operators to shut down their wells sooner. Shutting down these wells prevents the creation of new orphaned wells and avoids leaving them in the hands of the state. With early prevention methods like ours, taxpayers no longer bear the financial burden of plugging oil and gas wells.
