Denver-based HRM Resources acted as a middleman, moving wells from larger companies to smaller ones that went bankrupt, lawsuit says
A rusting orphan well sits at the end of Cindy McCormick’s driveway. She passes it when she goes out and when she comes home — a horsehead pump jack, a dilapidated shed, big weather-stained tanks and a pit.
The old oil and gas site has become a dumping ground attracting mattresses, couches and an old foosball table. The sign on the well pad located in unincorporated Adams County identifies the owner as Painted Pegasus Petroleum LLC — a bankrupt Texas company.
It is just one orphan well among an estimated 1,800 in Colorado, but a lawsuit filed in Adams County District Court contends it is part of a large, fraudulent scheme to dump old, played-out wells onto the state.
Before even reading the story I knew what it was going to be. Read about the same shit happening in Texas.
And what do you know, it’s a fucking Texas based company involved.
Alberta has joined the conversation.
Oh man! I was just about to say Texas! Oklahoma has its own version of this scheme. These oil companies, they absolutely do not want to pay decommissioning cost on this and they’ll use every trick they can find to avoid it as long as possible.
Coal industry does roughly the same thing just different tricks. Everyone in the fossil fuel industry looking to get out of that whole “what comes next” problem.
But can’t say much, recycling solar is nascent and hardly done at this point but the whole solar industry is brand new so hard to draw a conclusion there. Same for wind, most do eventually get landfill but there is interest at least in recycling, so we’ll have to see how that plays out.
But the energy sector in general seems to always want to skirt the costs at the end of operation, never calculating the full cost into the revenue stream. Stop paying the execs so much and hold some of that cash back for clean up time. You know it’s coming, the responsible thing is to not act all shocked that clean up time has come and file bankruptcy. Execs that do this ought to be shot.
Sure, but solar spills don’t exist. Sure, it’s trash if it isn’t recycled but these wells leak shit.