Millions Of Abandoned Wells Leak NG/Oil; W. Current Funding, 17,500 Years To Seal Wells Just In PA
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Unplugged wells are one of the highest-priority issues that state energy regulators are coping with, Ryan Hoffman, director of the Kansas Corporation Commission's oil and gas conservation division, said at a recent conference of the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission. The IOGCC, which serves as a trade group for state energy regulators, has issued a string of reports about orphan wells for the last few years.
Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection has about $400,000 a year to spend on well plugging, and the state also has a small grant program funded by oil and gas impact fees. At the current rate of 10 to 12 wells a year, it would take 17,500 years to work through the state's backlog, said Scott Perry, the head of the DEP's oil and gas division. "It is absolutely frustrating on a number of levels — that we have so many of these wells to address, that we have so little resources to do it, and that we are adding more wells to the list, newly abandoned wells," Perry said.
Given the lack of funding, state agencies tend to concentrate on the worst cases, which are usually a threat to human safety. The Pennsylvania DEP ordered three wells plugged in 2011 after a gas explosion destroyed a home in Bradford, Pa. No one was injured in that case.
In Ohio, the state Department of Natural Resources had to plug an abandoned well that was found under an elementary school gymnasium in 2014. And in West Virginia, state environmental officials set up a drilling rig inside an apartment complex to fix a leaky well that was causing oil to ooze through the ground floor. In Texas, the state Railroad Commission spent $23.4 million to plug about 1,200 orphan wells in fiscal 2018. But that wasn't enough to keep up with the number of wells that were abandoned by their operators, so the state's orphan well population increased from 5,687 to 6,285 during the fiscal year. "We're making progress, but we're treading water," Chairwoman Christi Craddick said during the commission's April 23 meeting.
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