American Oil and Gas Reporter - March 2023 - 75

SpecialReport: ESG Best Practices
Pennsylvania pledged to plug more
than 300 wells with initial funding. Ohio
is plugging as many as 320 wells. West
Virginia says it will plug 160 wells. And
Kentucky-thanks to lower cost estimates-plans
to plug 1,200 wells.
Initial grants have been released, and
contractors are on board. West Virginia
has four contractors: Next LVL Energy,
Coastal Drilling East, WPS Environmental
and North Wind Site Services. Kentucky
has three contractors: CMC Inc., Indiana
Petroleum Contractors and Womac Brothers
Inc. Ohio has two: CSR Services and
Next LVL Energy. Pennsylvania has four:
Plants & Goodwin, Next LVL Energy,
Hydrocarbon Services and Keystone
Wireline Services.
Other Funding Sources
In addition to federal monies, Pennsylvania
offers grants through the Marcellus
Legacy Fund. These grants help
municipalities, authorized organizations,
colleges, watershed organizations, businesses
and government councils to plug
or vent abandoned or orphan wells, or to
install mitigation systems that address
stray gas migration concerns.
Nongovernmental organizations also
back plugging efforts. For example, in
Texas, the Brazos Valley Groundwater
Conservation District provides grants to
cover 75% of the plugging cost. In Iowa,
landowners can get funding through the
Grants to Counties well program. And in
Missouri, a regulated community or nonprofit
noncommunity public water system
can obtain grants from the Missouri Department
of Natural Resources. These
are only a few examples of programs
that can offset plugging costs.
Private organizations have a role as
well. One example is the Well Done
Foundation, a Montana-based nonprofit,
which funds, finances and oversees plugging
projects around the country. The
Well Done Foundation is working with
the American Carbon Registry (ACR) to
create carbon credits for eliminating wells'
GHG emissions. The ACR methodology
provides a framework for quantifying,
monitoring, reporting and verifying GHG
emission reductions associated with plugging
abandoned wells.
Environmental Innovators of America,
an Oklahoma nonprofit created by top
executives from several oil and gas companies,
is another private group that is
tackling the problem. Much of its work
is funded by large corporate donations.
Finding Wells
In unconventional plays, older wells
that are inadequately plugged or not
plugged across the shale production zone
can provide a pathway for stray gas to
migrate from the shale formation to other
zones. Because the old wells can transmit
gas to freshwater or even the surface,
smart companies will evaluate the potential
for abandoned wells before drilling new
wells in an area that historically has had
oil and gas operations.
Any search for abandoned wells should
begin by looking at available records.
The most useful tool is old maps found
in company records, state agencies'
archives, historical oil museums and institutions,
and books on oil and gas development.
Title offices' records can provide
lease history and sometimes plats.
When I was investigating the possibility
of old wells on a former refinery site, I
found a map from the late 1800s at the
Drake Oil Museum that showed not only
the well we unexpectedly uncovered
during excavation operations, but also
six others. These wells had wooden casing,
a rare find.
To minimize costs, try to narrow the
search as much as possible before conducting
field surveys. These surveys are
essential and can involve physical searches,
magnetometers, infrared imaging,
gas detection, geophysics, aerial photos
and drones.
In Pennsylvania, if a survey reveals
one old well, tight historical spacing practices
often mean others are nearby. In the
1940s, the Drake property near Bradford,
Pa., had more than 800 wells on 1,200
acres. In several other fields, the spacing
was 200 feet, which means a single 100acre
property could contain 100 wells.
While most will be placed at regular intervals,
expect to find a few scattered
single wells drilled earlier.
A Joint Effort
Identifying and successfully plugging
old wells requires environmental expertise.
While the process of permanently isolating
and sealing a well can be simple, other
work must take place first, such as ownership
due diligence and managing the
project's required permitting.
Part of plugging a well entails evaluating
its type-either gas, oil or condensate-and
condition. Does it have open
casing? How large is that casing? Are
the tubing and casing damaged or broken?
Are there rods that will need to be pulled
or nearby tanks and pipelines that must
be decommissioned?
Often, obtaining grant money requires
quantifying the potential methane emissions
since such funds seek to target projects
likely to have the most impact. Once
the well is plugged, the emissions will
need to be monitored to validate the GHG
reductions.
Of course, these tasks require accessing
the land, which can mean talking with
landowners and securing the permits
MARCH 2023 75
Because historical well spacing practices used to be far tighter, finding one old well
often will help uncover others.
American Oil and Gas Reporter - March 2023

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