Berliner Boersenzeitung - America is finally cleaning up its abandoned, leaking oil wells

EUR -
AED 4.23719
AFN 80.135834
ALL 97.798467
AMD 439.918372
ANG 2.064799
AOA 1056.846409
ARS 1360.720244
AUD 1.777509
AWG 2.079657
AZN 1.96193
BAM 1.952774
BBD 2.319306
BDT 140.372501
BGN 1.957511
BHD 0.433329
BIF 3420.200601
BMD 1.153762
BND 1.475314
BOB 7.937701
BRL 6.396923
BSD 1.14872
BTN 98.846843
BWP 15.440077
BYN 3.759175
BYR 22613.741343
BZD 2.307425
CAD 1.567634
CDF 3319.374037
CHF 0.936589
CLF 0.02819
CLP 1068.414555
CNY 8.28586
CNH 8.293676
COP 4771.406987
CRC 579.002869
CUC 1.153762
CUP 30.574701
CVE 110.094415
CZK 24.809301
DJF 204.553057
DKK 7.458935
DOP 67.844878
DZD 150.02854
EGP 57.436382
ERN 17.306435
ETB 154.970782
FJD 2.593946
FKP 0.85007
GBP 0.851719
GEL 3.161735
GGP 0.85007
GHS 11.831668
GIP 0.85007
GMD 81.350521
GNF 9953.577519
GTQ 8.827323
GYD 240.327627
HKD 9.056198
HNL 29.980547
HRK 7.534872
HTG 150.646582
HUF 402.831494
IDR 18805.518075
ILS 4.153792
IMP 0.85007
INR 99.436426
IQD 1504.76845
IRR 48573.393545
ISK 144.001307
JEP 0.85007
JMD 183.915035
JOD 0.818026
JPY 166.746331
KES 148.410047
KGS 100.896972
KHR 4605.863487
KMF 492.083374
KPW 1038.386074
KRW 1578.52003
KWD 0.353305
KYD 0.957217
KZT 589.187089
LAK 24784.597729
LBP 102923.126693
LKR 343.947074
LRD 229.744025
LSL 20.672569
LTL 3.40676
LVL 0.697899
LYD 6.276275
MAD 10.502826
MDL 19.67152
MGA 5186.963107
MKD 61.439803
MMK 2422.55778
MNT 4132.43735
MOP 9.286811
MRU 45.60334
MUR 52.507446
MVR 17.773667
MWK 1991.813802
MXN 21.865408
MYR 4.898299
MZN 73.782996
NAD 20.672569
NGN 1779.608917
NIO 42.274498
NOK 11.43964
NPR 158.154948
NZD 1.917363
OMR 0.443343
PAB 1.14872
PEN 4.146176
PGK 4.798565
PHP 64.714144
PKR 325.655117
PLN 4.270166
PYG 9165.798137
QAR 4.190307
RON 5.019678
RSD 117.018686
RUB 91.852174
RWF 1658.729896
SAR 4.330755
SBD 9.630905
SCR 16.394893
SDG 692.823564
SEK 10.97093
SGD 1.480163
SHP 0.906676
SLE 25.440586
SLL 24193.823059
SOS 656.482819
SRD 43.29833
STD 23880.550451
SVC 10.051426
SYP 15001.047614
SZL 20.65899
THB 37.493823
TJS 11.601824
TMT 4.038168
TND 3.398934
TOP 2.702225
TRY 45.423733
TTD 7.78993
TWD 34.05944
TZS 2969.399091
UAH 47.647972
UGX 4139.585956
USD 1.153762
UYU 47.226825
UZS 14595.385312
VES 117.876459
VND 30084.352323
VUV 137.415593
WST 3.021918
XAF 654.942206
XAG 0.031816
XAU 0.000335
XCD 3.1181
XDR 0.814538
XOF 654.942206
XPF 119.331742
YER 280.767965
ZAR 20.727577
ZMK 10385.260948
ZMW 27.769972
ZWL 371.510994
  • CMSC

    0.0900

    22.314

    +0.4%

  • CMSD

    0.0250

    22.285

    +0.11%

  • RBGPF

    0.0000

    69.04

    0%

  • SCS

    0.0400

    10.74

    +0.37%

  • RELX

    0.0300

    53

    +0.06%

  • RIO

    -0.1400

    59.33

    -0.24%

  • GSK

    0.1300

    41.45

    +0.31%

  • NGG

    0.2700

    71.48

    +0.38%

  • BP

    0.1750

    30.4

    +0.58%

  • BTI

    0.7150

    48.215

    +1.48%

  • BCC

    0.7900

    91.02

    +0.87%

  • JRI

    0.0200

    13.13

    +0.15%

  • VOD

    0.0100

    9.85

    +0.1%

  • BCE

    -0.0600

    22.445

    -0.27%

  • RYCEF

    0.1000

    12

    +0.83%

  • AZN

    -0.1200

    73.71

    -0.16%

America is finally cleaning up its abandoned, leaking oil wells
America is finally cleaning up its abandoned, leaking oil wells

America is finally cleaning up its abandoned, leaking oil wells

Bill Suan bought his family's cattle farm in the mountains of West Virginia a decade-and-a-half ago with little thought for the two gas wells drilled on the property -- but then they started leaking oil onto his fields and sickening his cows.

Text size:

After taking the operator to court, Suan was successful in plugging one well, but the company has since disappeared, leaving him to contend with a small-scale environmental disaster that's a symptom of the larger problem of orphaned oil wells across the United States.

"It's shocking to think that it was like that for decades," Suan said.

From rural areas in the east where modern oil production began to cities in southern California, where pumpjacks loom not far from homes, the United States is pockmarked with perhaps millions of oil wells that are unsealed, haven't produced in decades, and sometimes do not have an identifiable owner.

The detritus of lax regulation and the petroleum industry's booms and busts, many states have struggled to deal with these wells, which can leak oil and brine into water supplies as well as emit methane, a particularly potent greenhouse gas.

In a first, Washington is making a concerted effort to plug these wells through a $4.7 billion fund, passed as part of an expansive overhaul of the nation's infrastructure.

"The money available to the states (has) never been commensurate to the scale of the problem, and now for the first time it will be," said Adam Peltz, a senior attorney at the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) nonprofit.

The funds will likely not be enough to solve the problem entirely, though, and environmentalists warn that the patchwork of state laws governing oil production include many loopholes that could allow companies to continue abandoning wells.

- Disappearing owners -

Since the first commercial barrel of oil was extracted in Pennsylvania in 1859, the United States has been at the center of global petroleum production.

But in many US states, it took more than a century to pass regulations governing record-keeping for wells and their sealing, or plugging.

Today, the exact number of abandoned wells nationwide is unknown, but the Environmental Protection Agency this year estimated it to be around 3.5 million.

The EDF estimates around nine million Americans live within a mile of a well that's considered orphaned, meaning that it's neither operating, nor has a documented owner.

In southern California's Kern County, the Central California Environmental Justice Network has received reports of abandoned petroleum infrastructure leaking oil next to schools and homes.

"A lot of the infrastructure that was built, that was now abandoned... is very much centered around poor communities," said Gustavo Aguirre Jr., the network's director in the county.

States have largely been left to their own devices when it comes to addressing these wells.

California plugs a few dozen per-year, according to the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission (IOGCC), and is currently in the process of sealing 56 near the city of Santa Clarita, just north of Los Angeles, some of which date back to 1949.

The bulk of America's orphaned wells are thought to be in eastern states where the industry was born, and where more than 160 years later, it's not unheard of for landowners to find a hole in the ground or a pipe protruding from the earth that's leaking oil or brine.

Pennsylvania, which is thought to have the most, plugged 18 orphaned wells in 2020, according to the IOGCC. In the same year, West Virginia, which has thousands of documented orphaned wells, plugged one.

"It's been decades of neglect, just letting them get away with it, not forcing the plugging regulations," said Suan, who has had to fence off the unplugged well on his land to keep cattle from getting into the leaked oil.

"And now we're stuck with all of them."

- 'Every slice' -

The federal infrastructure bill Congress approved last year will likely allow a chunk of these wells to be sealed, said Ted Boettner, a senior researcher at the Ohio River Valley Institute, which studies energy in the eastern region where oil production began.

However, he warned that in some states there aren't enough inspectors or financial requirements to keep drillers from continuing to walk away from their wells.

"This is just a drop, then, and the bonding coverage is so inadequate," Boettner said.

A McGill University study published last year ranked abandoned wells as the 10th greatest methane emitter in the United States, far below industries like cattle and natural gas production.

But with President Joe Biden's administration trying to curb the country's emissions where it can, and as estimates of future damage by climate change grow increasingly dire, Peltz characterized the plugging investment as a start.

"If we have to give every slice of the pie, which we do, we have to get this slice of the pie," he said.

(G.Gruner--BBZ)