More than 1,100 abandoned oil and gas well sites in Oklahoma were cleaned up in the past year through the efforts of the oil and gas industry, according to the Oklahoma Energy Resources Board.
The board’s annual report showed 1,113 sites were restored in Fiscal Year 2024 at a cost of $11,894,393 through contributions of the fossil fuel industry.
“All of our work is made possible by voluntary funding from the people of Oklahoma Oil and Natural Gas – the first and only program of its kind,” wrote OERB Executive Director Mindy Stitt. Oklahoma oil and natural gas producers and royalty owners underwrite the OERB through a voluntary one-tenth of one percent assessment on oil and natural gas.
From this funding the OERB provides free environmental restoration of historic well sites and extensive educational resources for Oklahoma educators, students and classrooms.
During FY 2024 the OERB reported it reached out and assisted 1,174 teachers and spent $2,598,975 on them and their classroom efforts. Since the OERB started its education outreach and workshops, it has trained 18,650 teachers on energy efforts and spent a total of $61 million.
The OERB reported that since its founding in 1993 it has restored 20,755 abandoned well sites at a cost of $163 million. The OERB removes concrete structures, trash and debris at old well sites, while the state Corporation Commission is responsible for plugging abandoned oil and gas wells.
Those sites have included 55 in Comanche County, 21 in Jackson County, 11 in Tillman County, 33 in Kiowa County, 101 in Caddo County, 227 in Cotton County, 747 in Stephens County, 81 in Grady County, 16 in Greer County and two in Harmon County, OERB records indicate.
From FY 2018 through FY 2023, Corporation Commission contractors plugged 778 abandoned wells at a cost of $13,128,040, according to Matt Skinner, the agency’s public information manager.
Almost half of those wells were plugged in FY23, after the federal government made an initial $25 million payment to the state under the Biden administration’s program to seal hundreds of abandoned wells – part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act signed into law in 2021.
The Corporation Commission has 28 private contractors to seal abandoned wells in the state well-plugging program, and 31 contractors signed on for the IIJA federal program, commission spokesman Trey Davis said. “Some pluggers are approved to plug orphaned wells from both lists,” he added.
Wells are classified as abandoned when no individual or company responsible for them can be found, Skinner said.
The OCC’s state fund for plugging abandoned wells is underwritten with a fee paid by current oil and gas operators in the state: .095 of 1% of the gross value of all natural gas and/or casinghead gas produced in the state that’s subject to the gross production tax. Bond forfeitures also are earmarked for plugging wells, Skinner related.