Wyoming Turns Down $35 Million From Feds To Clean Up Orphan Wells

Wyoming doesn’t want the federal government’s $35 million offer to plug orphan oil and gas wells.

The Biden administration’s Interior Department this week offered the availability of $775 million to 21 states to clean up legacy pollution.

Orphan wells are abandoned wells for which no owner can be determined. That number is fractional on public lands. It’s a different story on private lands, where there are substantially more.

The government’s offer to help clean up orphan wells in Wyoming was the sixth largest dollar amount made available to the 21 energy-producing states.

Other cleanup offers larger than Wyoming’s include $52.8 million to California; up to $102.6 million for Oklahoma; $86.6 million to Ohio; up to $152.8 to Pennsylvania; and $119.5 million to Texas.

Oklahoma and Texas could receive less money based on ongoing negotiations for previous grant funds offered.

Tom Kropatsch, oil and gas supervisor for the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (WOGCC) in Casper, told Cowboy State Daily in an email that his agency isn’t interested in the offer.

“We do not intend to apply for this second phase of the formula grant,” said Kropatsch, who did not immediately offer an explanation why his organization is turning down the money.

The commission has tracked the orphan well program with electronic records since the early 1990s, when it saw a peak of 7,250 orphan wells on its list. Of those, the commission has plugged 6,250.

Manna From Heaven

The orphan well cleanup money was made available to states through the 3-year-old Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, a catchall piece of federal legislation designed to help build everything from wind turbines and solar farms to cleaning up environmental messes and plugging leaky wells.

The orphan well program was designed in two phases.

Since August 2022, the federal government has awarded $565 million in initial grants to 25 states and another $444 million in a first phase of the cleanup program to 18 states.

Details of the second phase of the cleanup program were released this week, which begins the next phase to apply for an estimated $775 million in formula grant funds. The 21 states have until Dec. 13 to apply.

Kropatsch previously told Cowboy State Daily that the orphan well issue is well under control in Wyoming.

In April, Kropatsch said that the 538 orphan private and state wells that are not under contract for plugging will likely be put out for bid with plugging to begin in late 2024 and continue into 2025.

At that time, the state’s Oil and Gas Conservation Commission had 1,010 private and state wells on its orphan list, with 472 of those wells under contract to be plugged, all of which will likely be plugged in 2024.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management believes that orphan wells are big issue.

Some critics like the Petroleum Association of Wyoming disagree.

The Wyoming trade group worries that a new BLM rule could force oil and gas developers to leave Wyoming — or worse, America.

BLM issued the new rule April 11 that could make it difficult for some oil and gas companies to bid on energy leases on public lands.

The energy industry’s biggest beef with the rule is that the BLM may force developers to pay higher bonding amounts to drill on public land. The higher bond amount is meant to deter some developers from walking away from the drilling site and leaving a mess behind without any financial incentive to clean up.

Pat Maio can be reached at pat@cowboystatedaily.com.