Oil and Natural Gas Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

State Eligible For $55 Million To Cap Orphaned Oil, Gas Wells, Feds Say

West Virginia is getting some federal help to clean up abandoned oil and gas wells.

The U.S. Department of the Interior on Monday said the state is eligible for up to $55 million from last year’s bipartisan infrastructure law.

West Virginia has more than 4,000 documented abandoned oil and gas wells, but there are likely many more.

Uncapped wells contaminate soil and groundwater and release methane into the atmosphere. Methane is a greenhouse gas that’s 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

The state Department of Environmental Protection is charged with identifying the sites, but the program is understaffed.

The initial round of federal funding will help DEP boost staffing. The Interior Department will issue guidance in the coming weeks on applying for the grants.

Orphaned wells can be costly to fix. On average, it costs $55,000 to cap a well, usually with concrete. Depth is a major factor driving the cost.

Appeals Court Throws Out Government Approvals For Pipeline

A federal appeals court threw out government approvals for the Mountain Valley Pipeline through Jefferson National Forest for a second time on Tuesday.

A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found unanimously that the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management failed to properly predict and prevent erosion and sedimentation problems, The Roanoke Times reported.

The agencies “erroneously failed to account for real-world data suggesting increased sedimentation along the pipeline route,” Judge Stephanie Thacker said in the written decision.

The ruling sends the permit back to the agencies for reconsideration. When the court canceled permits in 2018, it took the agencies two years to approve another permit.

The court also ruled that the Forest Service prematurely authorized crossings of some streams in the national forest.

Much of the 303-mile (487-kilometer) natural gas pipeline has been completed, but it hasn’t been allowed to pass through a 3.5 mile (5.6 kilometer) section of the forest.

Pipeline spokeswoman Natalie Cox told the newspaper in an email that it is reviewing the decision and “evaluating the project’s next steps and timing considerations.”

Thousands of Oil, Gas Wells Need to Be Capped, and This is How Congress Can Help

West Virginia has thousands of abandoned oil and gas wells that need to be capped.

The state Department of Environmental Protection has identified more than 4,000, some of them more than a century old.

The wells contaminate soil and groundwater and release methane into the atmosphere. Methane is a greenhouse gas that’s 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

According to federal estimates, the methane released from these wells annually is equivalent to burning as much oil as the nation produces in a day.

A bipartisan infrastructure bill the U.S. Senate approved over the summer would provide about $4.7 billion to cap these problem wells.

The House of Representatives has not yet voted on the legislation. It’s tied up because lawmakers are still negotiating the size and scope of President Joe Biden’s jobs plan.

Ted Boettner, senior researcher at the Ohio River Valley Institute, says the bill would benefit West Virginia’s economy and environment.

“This infrastructure bill offers an enormous opportunity for the state of West Virginia and Appalachia as a whole to plug thousands of wells and put thousands of people to work,” he said, “and address climate change.”

But is the state’s inventory of orphaned oil and gas in the state accurate? Boettner said the actual number could be staggering.

“The real answer to that question is we don’t exactly know,” he said, “because we’ve never tried to go out and document all of them.”

Some wells are so old, there’s no documentation of their existence. The state has limited resources to track the ones it knows about, much less find others.

“In West Virginia, there could be hundreds of thousands of them,” Boettner said. “So it’s really just the tip of the iceberg.”

Orphaned wells can be costly to fix. Boettner says on average, it costs $55,000 to cap a well, usually with concrete. Depth is a major factor driving the cost.

Horizontally drilled wells, like those used to produce oil and gas through hydraulic fracturing, could cost as much as $250,000 each.

While the state has a program to deal with abandoned wells, it’s small relative to the size of the problem.

In the long term, Boettner calls for the creation of a program for oil and gas wells similar to the Abandoned Mine Lands fund. The fund is supported by a tax on coal production.

A fee on oil and gas extraction could support a fund to cap oil and gas wells, he says.

For now, West Virginia will need to rely on the help that’s in the infrastructure bill.

Bill to Strengthen Pipeline Safety Moves in the House

In the House chamber Tuesday, Delegates approved an amendment to a pipeline safety bill proposed on behalf of the governor.

House Bill 4323 was on second reading in the House, also known as the amendment phase. The bill requires pipeline operators to report an accident or emergency at their facility to the state Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management within 15 minutes or face a fine of up to $50,000.

Delegates considered one change on the House floor. House Energy Chairman Woody Ireland proposed the amendment to the full chamber. His change adjusts the definition of a pipeline facility, exempting pipelines that are 4 inches in diameter or less and service a farm or residence.

“The reason for that was to try to get the thing to really address issues that were high risk and really did impact folks’ safety,” Ireland said, “Now, the governor’s bill as it was proposed talked about all pipelines, and this was just a clarification of what a pipeline facility really meant.”

Ireland agrees that pipelines serving the oil and gas industry should be held to the reporting requirements, but small pipelines on personal property should not face such steep penalties. The fines for the failure to report an accident within 15 minutes range from $2,500 to $50,000.

Ireland’s amendment was passed unanimously by members in the House.

Some citizens interested in the bill, however, have voiced concerns over the $50,000 penalty, suggesting it’s actually too small and pipeline operators will be able to pay off any emergency incident easily.

Ireland disagrees.

“That’s a pretty stiff penalty, and it’s consistent with the other penalties that DEP have leveled on other commercial enterprises such as chemical industry and so forth. So $50,000 is pretty stiff, and it’s not something people are going to take lightly,” he said.

Ireland says the industry is also struggling financially because of the decline in natural gas prices and the penalty will be more than enough of an incentive to report the incident.

House Bill 4323 will be up for a final vote in the House chamber Wednesday.

Lawmakers Consider Beefing Up Gas Industry Safety

Lawmakers are considering a change to the way natural gas accidents are reported at the state level.

The House Industry and Labor Committee took up a bill Tuesday that clarifies who is alerted in the event of an accident on a natural gas well site or pipeline.

House Bill 4323 requires all such incidents be reported to the West Virginia Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management within fifteen minutes or face a 50 thousand dollar fine.

The bill was produced through the work of a special commission set up to review and update existing laws and regulations governing the state’s oil and natural gas industry.

Some members of the Industry and Labor Committee felt that the penalty was too high given the short amount of time allowed to report an incident, so an amendment was added to the bill. The change allows the Director of the Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management to assess a fine between $2500 dollars and $50,000 dollars for not reporting the incident.

Larry Malone is the Director of Policy for Governor Tomblin, and is the Chairman of the West Virginia Commission on Oil and Natural Gas Industry Safety. He says the amendment adds flexibility, but it doesn’t hurt the integrity of the bill.

“It doesn’t really change the fact that you could be assessed $50,000 dollars, it just provides the director with some discretion based upon the situation about whether he assesses the maximum fine or some fine that’s in-between, but again, to-date, nobody has been assessed, no company’s been assessed that fine, because they have all understood and responded appropriately when they have these types of emergency incidents,” Malone explained.

The committee passed House Bill 4323, 16 to 5. It now moves to the House Energy Committee before going to the full House for consideration.

U.S. Forest Service Extends Comment Period on Mountain Valley Pipeline

The U.S. Forest Service extended the comment period on whether portions of the Jefferson National Forest can be surveyed for a possible pipeline route.

A special-use permit would be required before surveying could be done in the national forest for the proposed Mountain Valley Pipeline.

The Forest Service’s original deadline for comments was Feb. 13. Comments will now be taken until April 2.

The deadline extension is in response to a new permit application filed March 4 by Mountain Valley Pipeline, LLC. Mountain Valley filed the new application because new routes it is considering for the pipeline would cross sections of the forest not covered in previous survey applications.

Forest Service Staff Officer Ken Landgraf said there’s no need to resubmit comments on the previous survey application as those comments are still being considered. He said new comments on the old survey application also will be accepted until April 2.

The Mountain Valley Pipeline company wants to survey new sections of the Jefferson National Forest in Monroe County, W.Va., and three counties in Virginia.

In February, a group of concerned citizens from Monroe County hand-delivered almost 800 letters of protest about the pipeline survey application to the Forest Service’s office in Virginia.

The proposed pipeline would carry natural gas from Wetzel County, West Virginia, to another pipeline in Pittsylvania County, in Virginia.

You can file a comment about Mountain Valley’s survey application by mail, email or fax:
Email: comments-southern-georgewashington-jefferson@fs.fed.us
Fax: (540) 265-5145
Mail or hand deliver: USDA Forest Service, Mountain Valley Pipeline Survey Comments, 5162 Valleypointe Parkway, Roanoke, VA 24019