191 abandoned oil and gas wells to be plugged
Staff writer
Braden Pagenkopf was cutting hay for a neighbor when he ran over a plastic pipe strung between two wells in the field.
“I cut it, and it sprayed everywhere. It was a mess,” said Pagenkopf, a Lost Springs custom farmer. The liquid wasn’t oil but a byproduct: toxic saltwater that comes up with oil and gas and typically is pumped back underground.
Unwanted surprises are common with the abandoned and the working wells that dot Marion County. The state estimates 120,000 well bores have been drilled in the state, including oil and gas and “injection” wells to pump discharge water back underground.
The state knows of at least 6,200 — and is investigating 4,500 more — that were simply abandoned, left in a field to rust, leak, and make an obstacle course for farm equipment.
Using money provided under the federal Infrastructure Act, Kansas is preparing to invade Marion County with well workers to plug 191 abandoned or “orphaned” wells this year.
“By the time we are done, we will have done the vast majority of orphan wells we know about in Marion County,” said Ryan Hoffman, director of the conservation division of the Kansas Corporation Commission, which oversees energy utility infrastructure in the state. “It’s a pretty good pace.”
However, the project will not plug two wells in the northeast part of Marion County that are on the state’s list of potential groundwater contamination concerns, Hoffman acknowledged.
The state still is investigating ownership of the two remaining wells, which have been on its to-do list for years, to see whether companies could be found and forced to pay for the plugging. Most abandoned wells were owned by operators who failed financially, often leaving the state.
Gas and oil companies are supposed to set aside money to plug — also called “cap” — wells when they stop pumping. Unplugged wells are a threat on several fronts: They can leak methane, a potent and potentially explosive greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. Underground, they can pollute groundwater and create sinkholes. On the surface, they can spill oil or discharge water.
Aside from environmental risks, there also is an issue of fairness to taxpayers, according to Adam Peltz, who helped map 141,000 orphan wells across Kansas and 29 other oil states for the Environmental Defense Fund.
“Operators have been required to plug their wells when they’re done for decades or a century,” he said from New York, “and if it doesn’t happen, it means that someone has broken the law and left the bill for the taxpayer.”
Kansas Corporation Commission ranks abandoned wells according to the potential threat they pose, mostly to groundwater supplies or spillage on the surface. In 2019, the commission identified 15 wells in Marion County as being of high concern.
The commission initially said six of those remain on their threat level “1B” — one step down from the “1A” highest danger. But on Monday, Ryan said, the information has “not been updated ” and only two wells in the county remain on the priority list.
One is located southeast of Antelope in a parcel northeast of the intersection of 230th and Xavier Rd. The other is west of Centre High School in Lost Springs, west of US-56 and south of 320th Rd.
Plugging a well involves installing a steel or concrete cap at the bottom, another just below the groundwater table, and then adding yards of concrete to completely fill the well hole to the surface.
Old “bobbing horse” pump and the gas storage tanks and pipes are hauled away for salvage.
The state received a grant of $25 million to remove orphaned wells under the bipartisan Infrastructure Law signed by President Biden in November, 2021.
The commission has $3.6 million for 191 wells in Marion County. Each well is estimated to cost from $7,000 to $20,000 to plug.
The state has capped about 11,000 wells since 1996.
“Kansas has plugged more wells with it than anybody else,” said Peltz.
Many wells in the eastern part of the state are relatively shallow — 1,000 feet or less — and cheap to plug, he said.
“Everyone is jealous of Kansas in this one particular regard,” he bragged,
Rex Savage, who estimates he drilled 100 wells and plugged “about as many” in Marion and Chase counties before leaving the drilling business in 2008, said wells often are abandoned because cost of plugging them is too high.
Because wells in this area produce slowly, he said, “it just doesn’t pay, even with oil at $100 a barrel.”
When a company starts to falter, “they just couldn’t afford to plug the wells,” he said.
The state can legally pursue those companies but rarely succeeds in getting much money from them, according to Hoffman.
The salvage price of old pumps and casings used to break even with the cost of plugging, Savage said.
While the salvage price has doubled, the cost of the work has quadrupled, and “you can get upside down real quick,” he said.
He said he got out of the plugging business because of the cost of labor.
“It’s hard, brutal work,” he said, “and guys don’t want to be out there unless they are paid very well.”