Posted on 01/12/2016 12:57:29 PM PST by thackney
It is not the EPA making the requirement. It is done by state rules.
Wells not in service are not being maintained. They will eventually begin to leak. Many older wells were abandoned when the production no longer paid to keep running. They began leaking oil and other reservoir gas and fluids into the drinking water levels.
Most (all?) states have some sort of Oil Field Cleanup fund, typically paid by permitting/use costs of newer wells.
More info can be found at:
WELL PLUGGING PRIMER
http://www.rrc.state.tx.us/media/6358/plugprimer1.pdf
RAILROAD COMMISSION OF TEXAS
If their was sufficient pressure to bring the oil all they to the top wouldn’t still be in production? Wha?
A well that produces 1 barrel of oil per week, and 20 gallons of water per day is going to be shut down. It is a constant expense, the disposal cost will exceed the oil production cost.
It isn’t about making oil, it is about making money.
But a barrel of oil a week leaking into your drinking supply is a really bad thing.
Still doesn’t answer my question. Why cap a well that requires mechanical action to lift the oil to the surface? It it has a valve head on it. Just shut it and wait for oil prices to go up.
Also keep in mind, it doesn’t need enough pressure to lift oil from the reservoir. It just needs enough to get to the bottom of the well. Being lighter that water it will rise in the well column through the water.
It will leak through the casing (eventually) contaminating drinking reservoirs. This has already happened in many old wells that were drilled before the rules that forced them to plug.
How can oil, not under pressure, contaminate water that is near the surface? Again is the oil under pressure or not? Oil wells are hundreds if not thousands of feet deep. Are you saying the well fills up with water? The casing fail? Is that the problem?
Are you saying the well fills up with water?
It will always be full of fluid. As the wells age, most of the flow becomes water (salty, contaminated water from the reservoir the oil/gas was in). Thatnwalty water adds to corrosion problems.
The hydrostatic pressure at these depths may not produce flowing oil, but the fluid will usually always rise to the level of the water table.
This is not my area of expertise.
Don’t producers pump hot water or steam into old wells to increase production?
Also, doesn’t oil seep into these denuded reservoirs, from below, over time, thus replenishing the reservoir?
“Don’t producers pump hot water or steam into old wells to increase production?”
At times, yes if the conditions are right for secondary or tertiary recovery, which loosens up oil in formation to move toward a producing well. Typically, one does not pump steam or water into a producing well, but into a nearby injection well to move the oil toward the producer. Most stripper wells have no injection nearby, but instead produce by a slow ‘bleeding’ over time.
“Also, doesn’t oil seep into these denuded reservoirs, from below, over time, thus replenishing the reservoir?
“
That is one theory that abounds, i.e. - a perpetual recharging. This could take millennia, which may not be long in geologic time, but is very long in human time so as to make it non-existent.
A reservoir is never really ‘denuded’, which I take you to mean the rock is stripped of oil. Most reservoirs average between 30% to 60% recovery of the oil originally in place over its economic life, with some rarities achieving as high as +90% and a lot in single digits. The type of reservoirs developed today(unconventionals) are thought to be able to recover on the low end, 5% up to maybe 35%. The recovery is weak as the rock is so low in permeability.
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