Hi, I’m Yves. This article describes the failure of US regulations and the dangers to public safety. It also looks at the consequences of subsidizing gas and fuel prices without thinking about the long term impacts. Properly pricing oil and LNG production would require huge stockpiles for cleanup after shutdowns and ongoing liability to operators. This wouldn’t solve the problem (how to handle bankruptcies would be an issue), but it would significantly reduce the scale of the problem of toxic abandoned wells.
Please note that this article does not focus on the risks posed by shut-in LNG wells, other than that they cause problems for older oil wells. Given that hydraulic fracturing destroys geological structures, one has to assume that sealing them tightly is inherently difficult.
But of course, the benefits that depend on cheap energy are necessary, and the cost is irrelevant.
By Haley Zaremba, a Mexico City-based author and journalist. Oil prices
- There are millions of abandoned oil and gas wells in the United States, posing serious environmental and public health risks.
- Bipartisan infrastructure legislation allocates $4.7 billion to address the problem, but the cleanup costs are estimated at $280 billion.
- In Texas, increased underground pressure from wastewater injections related to hydraulic fracturing could cause previously plugged wells to be reopened.
150 years of oil and gas production in the United States has resulted in millions of abandoned mines scattered across the country. Little to no oil or gas is extracted from these mines, but the wells remain highly productive. Unfortunately, what is extracted from these mines is a veritable Pandora’s box of toxic materials that threaten the health of local people and the environment.
“These formerly contaminated sites are environmental hazards,” the U.S. Department of the Interior has declared. A website dedicated to orphan wells“(They) endanger public health and safety by polluting groundwater, emitting toxic gases such as methane, littering the ground with rusty and dangerous equipment, creating flood and sinkhole hazards, and harming wildlife.”
Many of these wells, known as “orphan wells,” no longer have a formal owner, and therefore their proper decommissioning is the responsibility of the U.S. government. While the U.S. has made great strides toward solving the widespread and growing problem of orphan wells, especially with the Biden Administration’s recently passed bipartisan infrastructure bill allocating $4.7 billion just for this purpose, there is still a long way to go.
Despite years of efforts by private and public interests to plug and properly seal old wells to prevent harmful gases and chemicals from escaping, studies have found that approximately 2.6 million onshore wells remain unsealed. 2020 Report It was released by the environmental watchdog group Carbon Tracker. And these are just the ones we know about. The report estimates that there are an additional 1.2 million unlogged wells across the country. Just plugging the 2.6 million wells that we know about is projected to cost a staggering $280 billion, meaning the $4.7 billion allocated in the bipartisan infrastructure bill will do little to address the problem.
Moreover, many of the blocked wells are now exploding, according to Reuters. Report In West Texas, “over the past two years, an increasing number of abandoned wells have been spilling, erupting like geysers, forming salty and chemical lakes, and triggering sinkholes.” There are several possible explanations for this phenomenon.
First, the Texas Railroad Commission, the regulatory agency that oversees oil and gas operations, is running the sealing process sloppily. Because there are no solvent owners of record for the abandoned wells, the RRC has the legal responsibility to properly seal them.
The second big problem seems to stem from rising underground pressures caused by the region’s shale boom. When oil and gas are extracted through hydraulic fracturing, large amounts of water gush out of the wells. This salty “wastewater” can be Contains harmful substances Radium, boron and other elements are found in large quantities underground, and most of them are injected into the ground, but if injected too deeply they can cause earthquakes, and if injected too shallowly, pressure builds up underground and poorly sealed wells start to explode.
this is The big problem The Texas oilfield is the epicenter of the U.S. shale revolution and home to the Permian Basin, the nation’s largest oil field. Billions of gallons of wastewater have been injected into underground reservoirs there, likely contributing to a problem of previously plugged “zombie wells” becoming active again.
The RRC disputes reports that the problem of “zombie wells” is widespread and whether there is any empirical evidence linking them to wastewater injection, but there is no scientific evidence supporting the link. Under Construction The same goes for public and private oversight. In fact, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency: Revoke RRC permission The Texas watchdog group Commission Shift responded to a federal complaint by calling for the installation of wells to dispose of such wastewater.
