NEW ORLEANS - More than 27,000 abandoned oil and gas wells lurk in the hard rock beneath the Gulf of Mexico, an environmental minefield that has been ignored for decades. No one - not industry, not government - is checking to see if they are leaking, an Associated Press investigation shows.
The oldest of these wells were abandoned in the late 1940s, raising the prospect that many deteriorating sealing jobs are already failing.
The AP investigation uncovered particular concern with 3500 of the neglected wells - those characterised in federal government records as "temporarily abandoned".
Regulations for temporarily abandoned wells require oil companies to present plans to reuse or permanently plug such wells within a year, but the AP found that the rule is routinely circumvented, and that more than 1000 wells have lingered in that unfinished condition for more than a decade.
About three-quarters of temporarily abandoned wells have been left in that status for more than a year, and many since the 1950s and 1960s - even though sealing procedures for temporary abandonment are not as stringent as those for permanent closures.
much more . . .
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10657124&pnum=0Basically the oil companies say they take proper care to seal their wells saying "It's in everybody's interest to do it right." But abandoned wells are typically not inspected. Rarely does the government bother getting around to fining those that do leak. So really it is not in everybody's interest to do it right. BigOil comes out ahead at throwing the least money possible at the problem since nothing happens to them if things go wrong.
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