More than 1,000 orphaned oil and gas were plugged in Texas in fiscal year (FY) 2024 using state funds, the Railroad Commission (RRC) has reported.

That means the RRC, in charge of regulating oil and gas activities and utilities operations in Texas, exceeded its well-plugging target for FY 2024, or September 2023 to August 2024. This is also the eighth straight year that the RRC surpassed its legislative target, which has been raised over the years, the agency highlighted in a report on its website.

“We continue to be a national leader in addressing orphaned wells”, RRC Deputy Executive Director Danny Sorrells said in a statement. “Our extensive well plugging experience dates to 1984, and elements of our program, such as a prioritization system that ensures high-risk, high-priority wells are plugged, have been copied by other states.

“The design of RRC’s plugging program and our dedicated staff help us quickly work to protect groundwater around the state”.

State funds used for plugging wells in Texas come from oil and gas industry revenue including well-plugging fees, bonds and reimbursements, according to the RRC.

The federal government has also been required by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, passed by President Joe Biden November 2021, to allot $4.7 billion in funding for well plugging, remediation and restoration across the country.

According to the latest data from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) there were nearly 1.8 million unplugged abandoned oil wells and over 440,000 unplugged abandoned gas wells across the United States as of 2020. These had a combined 275,000 metric tons of methane emissions, the EPA said in a report April 2022.

Orphaned wells are a subset of abandoned wells. Abandoned wells include wells with no recent production and not plugged, wells with no recent production and no responsible operator, and plugged wells, while orphaned wells are wells for which no operator can be located or whose operator is unable to conduct plugging, according to definitions by the EPA and the Interior Department.

In 2021 the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) counted nearly 6,500 orphaned wells in Texas and over 81,000 across the country.

“There is also a large population of wells that are low- or nonproducing which are likely to be orphaned in the future — Texas alone has over 100,000 idled wells”, the New York City-based environmental advocacy group said in a report then.

In other Texas well data, the RRC separately reported it had issued 814 original drilling permits last month. The figure consisted of 768 permits to drill new oil or gas wells, 36 permits for the recompletion of existing wellbores, eight permits to reenter plugged wellbores and two permits for field transfers. 

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