An orphaned well is an unplugged oil, gas, or injection well for which no viable responsible party can be located, or where the owner is known but bankrupt. But “orphan well” is just a legal classification. There are legacy wells that oil and gas companies plugged with inappropriate materials or by using practices that are now obsolete. These wells have crashed into public consciousness partly because they are affecting more and more Texans and are difficult to ignore. The oil and gas industry is exhibiting signs of systemic decline, meaning there will be more wells to plug in the near future. Texas needs to prepare for the transition to responsible asset retirement.
State policies allow rule-breaking oil and gas companies to transfer plugging and cleanup costs of their abandoned wells to the state. The Railroad Commission of Texas, which despite its name oversees oil and gas development, has designed a broken system where the state routinely takes on risks from the industry without collecting enough taxes and fees from the industry to deal with those risks.
The Railroad Commission has the most important role to play in ensuring oil and gas well operators follow through with their obligations to properly clean up sites and plug inactive wells. Once a well stops producing oil or gas, operators are required to plug them within 12 months. Many operators request plugging extensions, however, and the Railroad Commission regularly grants these requests. As the wellbore deteriorates, it can leach oil, gas, and residual drilling fluids into groundwater supplies. Unplugged and abandoned wells also can release methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere, and open pits for collecting wastewater or other byproducts of the drilling process can leak and pose threats to groundwater as well.
When some of these operators go bankrupt, they end up leaving behind “orphaned” wells that become the state’s responsibility to plug. The Railroad Commission spends tens of millions of dollars each year plugging orphaned wells and cleaning up sites. One source of funding for this program is bonds that operators pay to assure the state that financial resources will be available to plug the wells, but the bonds cover only a fraction of the cost of plugging and cleanup. In 2017, the Sunset Commission found that insufficient and inequitable statutory bonding requirements contribute to the large backlog of abandoned wells. However, the Sunset Commission’s recommendation to amend blanket bonding requirements was not adopted.
The Railroad Commission has had opportunities to confront the transition occurring in the energy business and better prepare for the declining revenue and rising environmental risks it poses. So far, however, it has failed to do so. Read our full Orphaned Wells reports.
Read our Orphaned Well ReportsNumber of orphaned wells by Texas County. Source: Railroad Commission of Texas. Orphan Wells with Delinquent P-5 Greater Than 12 Months.
Orphaned wells have no active operator on file with the Railroad Commission of Texas. The wells on this list have been inactive at least 12 months, and the operator’s organization report (P-5) has also been delinquent for at least 12 months.
Note: The count of wells depicted by each color symbol are different in the orphaned wells map compared to the inactive wells map. See legend for details.
Number of inactive unplugged wells by Texas County. Source: Railroad Commission of Texas. Inactive Well Aging Report.
Inactive wells are those with an active operator that have been inactive for at least 12 months. These wells do not meet the definition of “orphaned wells.” Operators are still responsible for plugging these wells.
Note: The count of wells depicted by each color symbol are different in the orphaned wells map compared to the inactive wells map. See legend for details.
A five part explainer on all our orphaned well recommendations.