ABANDONED OIL WELLS & PHANTOM WELLS

Abandoned oil wells have rapidly become one of the major headline issues in the world’s fight against climate change. When oil wells on land are drilled, holes are bored into the ground that often go miles down. These holes are cased in cement to prevent leakage, all the way down to the bottom of the well where the oil is. Oil wells are more expensive to clean up afterward when they’re no longer profitable.

Here’s the thing: oil wells don’t produce a constant amount of oil. It’s not like a faucet you can turn on and off. Oil well flow rates vary depending on a number of factors, including how much oil is left in the reservoir.

Over time, however, as more and more oil and gas is pumped away, flow rates will continuously decrease. At some point, there won’t be enough oil coming out anymore to offset the costs of keeping the well running. This is known as a well’s “economic limit”. There’s still plenty of oil and gas left down there. It’s just not coming up fast enough for the oil company to make any money off it. So, at this point the well is usually shut down – or “plugged”. Quite often, oil companies will do this simply when oil prices are unfavorable.

Temporary plugs are placed in these wells so that they can be reactivated at a later date. However, sometimes these wells are forgotten afterwards. The owners may have gone bankrupt, lost their drilling rights… Or they may simply have walked away from the well, leaving them neglected. Abandoned. But just because they’ve been abandoned doesn’t mean they’re out of sight, out of mind. Many of these abandoned wells leak, potentially contaminating the surrounding groundwater or soil.

And one of the most concerning things these wells leak is Methane– a deadly greenhouse gas that’s the second-largest contributor to climate change, right behind carbon dioxide. 

Methane gas is up to 86 times better than CO2 at trapping heat in the atmosphere in the first 20 years after it’s been released. So, targeting methane emissions is an important part of the fight against climate change.

JC Foundation houses plugging and cleaning effort to reduce emission and climate change