orphan wells

US Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland issued an order to establish an office to ensure efficient use of the Biden administration's $4.7 billion investment in the cleanup of abandoned oil and gas wells.

Bob Pearson shares his thoughts on the repurposing or abandonment and decommissioning of wells that are unlikely to be repurposed or pose an environmental risk with emissions into the atmosphere or aquifers.

The $25 million is an initial grant from the recent Bipartisan Infrastructure Law passed last November.

The DOI guidance explains how states can apply for the first $775 million in grant funding available this year under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to create jobs cleaning up polluted and unsafe orphaned oil and gas wellsites across the country.

Higher bonding amounts and an expanded orphaned well program will fund the cleanup of thousands of aging sites.

The US government has made more than $1 billion available to qualified states. The program is part of the recently passed infrastructure law.

The impact of orphan wells, both on the environment and on tightening budgets, is a growing concern in the industry. Boom times result in a vast uptick in wells drilled. In bust times, when companies disappear, the liability outlook for these probes gets murky and federal and state governments start looking for answers.

It is estimated there may be a few hundred thousand abandoned wells in Pennsylvania—some located in the woods, along riverbanks, in people's yards, and even inside their homes.

Ranchers and regulators are contending with uncontrolled leaks from thousands of abandoned oil and gas sites that could render some land “functionally uninhabitable.”

Airborne drones with magnetometers have worked well in trials and are ready for more widespread use, potentially revealing thousands of previously unknown wells.