On March 11, Laura Legere and Anya Litvak of the Post-Gazette reported the Department of Environmental Protection and Diversified Gas & Oil to plug or restart production in 1,412 abandoned wells over the next 15 years.
The agreement also requires the company to submit a $7 million bond to cover plugging costs if the company walks away from its obligations, plus additional bonds of $20,000 to $30,000 per well for unproductive wells the company buys or sells in the future
“DEP officials believe the deal offers much more protection than current state law, which allows operators of traditional, shallow wells to provide financial protection for as many wells as they want with a single $25,000 bond. Wells drilled before 1984 require no bond at all.
“This is the largest performance bond we’ve secured in the oil and gas program,” said Dan Counahan, DEP’s southwest district manager for oil and gas operations. “It goes well beyond the insufficient bonding instituted by the Legislature.”
The order also includes a stricter definition of what counts as an abandoned well than is currently in law.
Diversified owns about 23,000 conventional wells in Pennsylvania.
Last July DEP issued an order to plug 1,058 wells to 3 companies that sold conventional wells to Diversified.
No comments :
Post a Comment