Capping Abandoned Methane-Spewing Oil Wells

“When the petroleum company that had drilled many of these wells folded in the 1990s, as many did when crude prices bottomed out after the Gulf War, the open boreholes left behind became the responsibility of the state.” Montana and a number of other oil and gas producing states prioritize capping wells posing a more dangerous threat, ones that are “leaking oil onto topsoil or sullying a water supply.”

“’Whether you are a climate denier or a climate advocate,” [Well Done Foundation’s Curtis Shuck] stressed last month, ’when you look at what I saw that first day, you can’t tell me that’s OK. There is no universe where leaving something behind like that is OK.’

“Pretty soon, you look back, and we are plugging our seventh well, and we’ve stopped the emission of equal to thousands of automobiles. That’s not nothing,” he said.

“The nonprofit has its detractors. Shuck gets pushback from some in the oil industry, not because of the science behind Well Done’s goals but ‘because they feel we are bringing all of this attention to this problem in their own backyard. They are afraid that will translate in a higher cost for them to do business.’”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2021/07/01/capping-methane-spewing-oil-wells-one-hole-time/