Abandoned U. S. Oil wells to be supervised
2023.01.10 15:06
Abandoned U. S. Oil wells to be supervised
By Tiffany Smith
Budrigannews.com – On Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland issued an order to set up an office to make sure that the $4.7 billion the Biden administration invested in the cleanup of abandoned oil and gas wells are used effectively.
Kimbra Davis will be in charge of the Orphaned Wells Program Office. Davis has been employed by the Interior Department since 2009. Oil and gas wells that have been abandoned and are no longer producing are known as orphaned wells.
Haaland released a statement in which she stated, “The Department is standing up a new office to support states, tribes, and federal land managers as they close and remediate orphaned oil and gas wells that pose environmental hazards to communities across the country.”
President Joe Biden has set a goal of reducing climate-warming methane emissions, creating jobs, and addressing pollution in communities impacted by the infrastructure left behind by oil and gas drilling for more than a century. Well-plugging efforts are one part of this goal.
Over the past ten years, the number of abandoned wells in the United States has increased, and many experts predict that this trend will continue as cleaner energy replaces fossil fuels.
More than 130,000 orphaned wells were documented in a 2022 Interior Department analysis, significantly more than the 56,600 listed in a 2019 report by the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission.
In 2021, a bipartisan infrastructure bill gave $4.7 billion to clean up wells. $4.3 billion went to plug orphaned wells on state and private lands, $250 million went to cap them on public lands and in national parks, national forests, and wildlife refuges, and $150 million went to tribal lands.
The Interior Department stated that $33 million had been allocated this year to clean up 277 abandoned wells, and $560 million had been distributed to set up infrastructure for plugging wells.
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