There are millions of defunct oil and gas wells throughout the U.S., and they’re a major source of methane emissions. Cleaning them will cost billions.
A program spearheaded by the Bureau of Land Management and bolstered by the $1.2 trillion infrastructure package is aimed at plugging forgotten wells, found in over half of U.S. states.\n
The U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management Director Tracy Stone-Manning and other officials described a $5 billion program to plug and remediate abandoned and orphaned oil and gas wells, made possible by the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill. Utah has an estimated 400 orphaned wells. Utah will work to plug the wells, many of which are on tribal and federal land.
Randy Pacheco, the chief executive officer of the San Juan Basin-based A-Plus Well Service, said the state’s workforce needs to be built up to address the orphaned oil and natural gas wells that dot the landscape in many states including New Mexico. Pacheco was one of the panelists who participated in a roundtable-style webinar discussion […]