As reported by Dan Arthur – ALL Consulting
The Oil & Gas industry has been around for a long time and survived so many booms and busts! Over the last 150 years, millions of wells have been drilled, but Operators of oil & gas wells work with a commodity that they can’t control. Too often, governments and other entities use oil & gas as political weapons or bargaining chips! During Covid, oil prices fell to -$47 per barrel! In 1982, Penn Square Bank fell to bankruptcy with falls in oil prices and more companies went bankrupt than I can count! But, hydrocarbons help the United States win WWI as we went from fighting from horseback to fuel powered engines! In WWII, the story was similar as it was a key asset of America that helped us prevail!
Today, we have to deal with a lot of oil Orphan, Idle, Abandoned, and Marginal (OIAM) wells that need to be plugged. The only way these wells will get taken care of is through the private sector and incentives (like carbon credits). Regardless, finding these wells remains a challenge and so I took an NPR reporter out to Osage County to do some investigative work on old orphan wells.