Orphaned wells in the United States

[2] North Dakota dedicated $66 million of its CARES Act pandemic relief funds for plugging and reclaiming abandoned and orphaned wells.

[3] According to the Government Accountability Office, the 2.1 million unplugged abandoned wells in the United States could cost as much as $300 billion.

[5] In 2023, state governments in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and California reported a shortage of trained staff necessary to implement federally funded well capping programs.

Federally funded well plugging contracts are required to meet Davis-Bacon Act standards for prevailing wages, in order to ensure that the training of new oil field workers will contribute to local economic development in rural areas.

"[9] Orphaned and abandoned wells can cause environmental damage by leaking pollutants into the atmosphere or water supplies.

[1] Plugging wells can reduce the risk of explosions and protect groundwater, but does not always prevent methane emissions.

In the United States, it is possible for wells to have been orphaned or abandoned for over a century, and information about them, if it exists at all, can be difficult to find.

A significant challenge of making well bonds an effective policy tool is to set their price to a point that does not make market entry prohibitively expensive, but also does not incentivize well operators to forfeit the bond instead of undertaking the abandonment requirements specified in local law.

[13] However, geothermal fluids can contain environmentally hazardous chemicals such as hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, methane, arsenic, mercury, and lead.