Cleanup of abandoned oil and gas wells could cost Texans $117 billion

[Elderberry]

Houston Chronicle by  Paul Takahashi Oct. 1, 2020

Plugging and cleaning up the open oil and gas wells in Texas could cost companies and taxpayers as much as $117 billion, according to a new report.

Carbon Tracker, a nonprofit financial think tank that studies the effects of climate change on financial markets, estimates there are some 3.8 million unplugged oil and gas wells nationally, including more than 783,000 across Texas. As the coronavirus pandemic forces more oil and gas companies into bankruptcy, Carbon Tracker fears more of these unplugged wells could be abandoned, leaving taxpayers on the hook for plugging and cleaning up so-called “orphan wells.”

“Texas by far has the highest number of wells of any state in the U.S. and orphan wells are going way up,” said Greg Rogers, a special advisor and co-author of the Carbon Tracker report. “We’re seeing a lot of operators go bankrupt and they can’t afford to fulfill their legal obligations to plug in abandoned wells.”

More than 30 oil and gas producers have filed for bankruptcy protection since the coronavirus began widely spreading in the U.S. broke out nationally in March, according to Haynes and Boone. The Dallas-based law firm said bankruptcy filings this year are up 62 percent compared with the same period last year. There are more than 6,200 abandoned oil and gas wells in Texas, according to the Texas Railroad Commission, which oversees oil and gas companies operating in the state.

More: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/Texas-taxpayers-could-face-117B-cost-to-clean-up-15611824.php

[Victoria33]

The United States is falling and will not recover as the world leader again.

[Hoodat]

Carbon Tracker, a nonprofit financial think tank that studies the effects of climate change on financial markets  .  .  .

This is the point at which I stopped reading.

[Hoodat]

The United States is falling and will not recover as the world leader again.

How can you possibly draw such a definitive conclusion on the US as a world leader based on whether or not an abandoned well somewhere in Texas gets plugged?  Seriously.

[MajorClay]

Yikes

[catfish1957]

CERCLA provisons and guidelines (if they are met) and really neat advancements in bio-remediation make this  $117B price tag sound way past silly, and are downright ridiculous.

I was in the environmental field over 40 years, worked as Enviornmental Manager at a facility, that had  staff that managed 100's of spills.  Beleive me folks, it does not take $18.8M per contaminated site (based on article data and an average) to clean up a spills for 6200 abandoned sites

Not taking account:

(1) Storage and operation areas have containment devices where practical.
(2) O & G facilities are typically small footprinted areas.
(3) Contaminated areas are typically 6" deep.  Bioremediation Costs before I retired was generously in the $30-$40 per cubic yard, to bring area back to background on TPH analyisis.. (Test for Total Petroluem Hydrocarbon).  That means if you had a pretty decently large spill area or contaminated area of say 2500 square feet outside containment devices.  Cleanup cost would generally cost you conservatively about $50,000, not $18.8 Million per site.

Article is pure bullshit, and alarmism.  Hell, $18.8M would probably be enough for an entire large petrochemical plant.

[IsailedawayfromFR]

The United States is falling and will not recover as the world leader again.

[IsailedawayfromFR]

I wonder if this author has similar sentiments about the windmills that have sprouted across Texas and the nation?