by Roz Brown for Public News Service
The number of inactive oil and gas wells in New Mexico is rising along with the cleanup cost and a new report found the cumulative impact is enormous.
Research by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis showed the number of wells likely to become orphans is growing faster than the state can plug and remediate its existing inventory.
Trey Cowan, oil and gas analyst at the institute, applauded New Mexico for adopting stricter bonding rules this year to hold operators accountable but said they skirted responsibility for too long.
"It's an insurmountable task. Treading water at best, but that's really just on paper. It's getting worse over time, not better," Cowan emphasized. "They're the ones that created this problem. They should be the ones to have to fix it."
Already this year, the New Mexico Oil Conservation Division has set a record by sealing 114 orphan wells, beating its previous high of 104. Meanwhile, the average well-plugging cost is now around $250,000 per well, with total state liabilities projected between $700 million and $1.6 billion. Orphaned wells have the potential to contaminate water supplies, degrade ecosystems and emit methane and other air pollutants.
Cowan noted advanced remote sensing and on-the-ground visual clues can now show the damage.
"Up until the last 15, 20 years, people didn't really know how bad it was with these old wells and how much they're leaking and how much of an issue they actually are to the environment," Cowan observed.
When the rightful owner or operator of an abandoned well cannot be found, taxpayers foot the bill for cleanup. Although it's a complicated problem, Cowan sees a possible solution.
"If I wanted to see this problem fix itself, it would be, 'You operators, you're going to have to take over this pool of orphan wells and you get one that's in this pool every time you ask for a permit to drill a new well,'" Cowan suggested.
New Mexico's Oil Conservation Division was tracking approximately 3,300 inactive wells in mid-August, a number which has quadrupled between 2016 and 2025.