U.S. needs more than $30 billion to plug inactive oil and gas wells
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Leaks from the wells could harm marine ecosystems and add to planet warming methane emissions, but plugging them would cost billions.
Mark Agerton at the University of California, Davis, and his colleagues collected data from the US Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement on the 82,000 wells drilled in the Gulf of Mexico.
While most of the wells have been plugged and abandoned, they found that more than 14,000 are unplugged, despite having been inactive for at least five years, a point beyond which they are unlikely to restart production.
Operators are legally required to plug wells once they are taken out of production, which usually involves a cement cap covered with sediment. A little over 5000 wells remain active.
The study estimates that capping just those wells would cost more than $30 billion. ■