82-year-old well spewing oil in Louisiana marsh never plugged in hope of future production

• BY DAVID J. MITCHELL | Staff writer  nola.com

Excerpt.

They say the incident is an example of at least two things: Louisiana's insufficient measures to shut thousands of aged wells permanently and the shortsightedness of Trump administration cuts to federal government agencies that protect the public and environment.

Congressman Troy Carter, D-New Orleans, said the Trump administration's DOGE cuts have laid off or forced into early retirement more than 1,000 workers with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, including some from the unit in its Emergency Response Division that handles oil and other spills.

"As oil shoots 30 to 40 feet into the air from a well that should have been permanently sealed years ago, we are left scrambling to contain a disaster with fewer people, fewer resources, and fewer answers. This week marks 15 years since the Deepwater Horizon tragedy, and yet here we stand, once again, dangerously unprepared," Carter said.

Republican congressmen and Trump officials have largely celebrated the cuts by DOGE, led by billionaire Elon Musk, for rooting out a few hundred billion dollars in waste and fraud. Critics have questioned the size of the savings estimates.

Well 59 was first drilled in the final months of 1942 to nearly 6,900 feet deep in the search for oil. It has had multiple owners through the decades and was significantly reworked in 1989 and 1994, state oil and gas records show.

In the decade since Well 59 was shut in, it continued to change hands before an affiliate of Spectrum Energy with common ownerships bought it and 291 other wells last year for about $3.9 million. The previous owner, Whitney Oil and Gas, was in bankruptcy, federal court records show.

Coast Guard officials said the shut-in well was being kept closed with valves. Except for missing signage, the well passed a state safety inspection in June 2023, state records show.

In an interview, Brady Bradshaw, who works for the Center for Biological Diversity, alleged oil companies often use the promise of future production to shut-in wells and avoid more costly plugging and abandonment.

Bradshaw charged that "aging, unplugged wells like this one are clearly a recipe for disaster" and suggested the problem was a reason to halt expansion of offshore drilling.

"For the sake of Louisiana's communities and sensitive coastal environment, government officials should stop letting oil companies skip out on their well-plugging responsibilities," he added in a statement.

Patrick Courreges, spokesman for the state Department of Energy and Natural Resources, said the department has taken a variety of steps over the past decade, including increasing financial security requirements and well inspections, to incentivize owners to do something with their wells.

"Either get them in production or plug them and clean them up like you should," he said. "At some point, though, if you press too hard with that, [operators] give up, especially the smaller operators who are like, 'Ok, I just don't have the money to do that.'"

The wells then become "orphans" that are the state’s responsibility. Courreges argued the department is riding a fine line between pushing operators and unintentionally driving up the number of orphan wells.

Louisiana has about 4,700 orphaned wells, which the Louisiana Legislative Auditor recently found would cost about $543 million to plug permanently.

Auditors have also recently found the state wasn't requiring enough security to cover plugging costs and has underfunded its plugging program. Auditors have also separately questioned the spending by and oversight of a third-party agency that offers smaller drillers financial security for plugging.

Department officials have said they are trying to address the auditors' findings and have pushed new laws to tighten the rules.