PA Orphan Well Plugging Contracts Will Go to Conventional Drillers

Pennsylvania has already received the first $25 million payment from the so-called infrastructure bill, a down payment on what will eventually be $330.6 million (see PA Receives First $25M (Out of $104M) to Plug Orphaned Wells). The money is to be used to plug old abandoned and orphaned oil and gas wells across the state. PA has perhaps more orphaned wells than any other state (we've seen estimates as high as 200,000 old wells). The good news is that PA's small mom-and-pop conventional drillers will likely get many of the jobs to do the plugging. The bad news (for drillers) is that if a driller has any outstanding violations not yet resolved (business- or environmental-related), it won't get any of the well-plugging work.

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