Abandoned Oil and Gas Wells
Abandoned oil wells aren’t something someone thinks about
especially when buying a house, but for some it’s a hidden danger. “In Colorado
alone, there are more than 35,000 abandoned wells. There are more than 50,000
in Wyoming.” (Source 1) Officials believe that plugging said wells, usually
with cement, means that the well is dead and can no longer do any harm. This
means that there is no monitoring set in place to keep these wells in check.
“When a state sees a well is plugged, they typically put a checkmark by that
well in a database or in a file somewhere, and they don’t do anything (else)
for the most part,” (Source 1) Methane is present in all gas and oil wells and
if accumulated in a confined space, being a dangerous gas, can be
explosive. Tests have been done on both plugged and unplugged wells, with
a majority only leaking small amount. Unplugged wells weren’t the only ones
that were leaking a lot; most of the plugged ones were to blame. “Engineer Mary
Kang estimated that abandoned wells account for 4 to 7 percent of the state’s
total man-made methane emissions.” (Source 1) In Alberta, Canada they require
monitoring and “found that, on average, 7.7 percent of wells end up leaking.”
(Source 1) If leaking wells weren’t bad enough sometimes the locations of the
wells was completely wrong. “A quarter of them weren’t where they were
supposed to be. Some of them weren’t even close. The furthest well was more
than a mile away from where records indicated it was supposed to be.” (Source
1) Be sure to do some deep searching the next time you’re looking at buying a
new home to make sure methane isn’t lurking in your backyard.
(An unplugged oil well in
Pennsylvania)
Generally, these two processes are quite alike. Some wells only contain oil, while others have oil, but there are also many reserves that include both fossil fuels.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the main difference is that most shale oil formations require being fracked only for once, whereas natural gas formations need multiple fracking processes to access the reserves. Oil and gas company in Calgary, Alberta