News from the Oklahoma Corporation Commission

OKLAHOMA CITY -- After more than three years of planning and preparation, the Oklahoma Corporation Commission's Oil and Gas Division expects to start plugging nearly 200 abandoned and leaking oil and gas wells near the eastern shore of Lake Oologah by late September.

The process will begin on Aug. 2, when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) establishes an on-site command post to oversee what has been designated as a pilot for a larger cleanup program that may eventually plug more than a thousand wells near the lake, Mike Battles, Corporation Commission Oil and Gas Division director, said.

The EPA has hired the Corporation Commission as the pilot project general contractor. Wells to be plugged and contractors to plug them will be determined in August and early September. Battles said the plugging is expected to take about two months, unless weather intervenes. "Most of these wells are very shallow, about 500 feet deep, and we should be able to plug up to four wells a day," Battles said.

The commission's Oil and Gas Division, which has coordinated plugging preparations, will supervise plugging, and the Oklahoma Energy Resources Board will handle site restoration, including removal of soil contaminated by crude oil leaks and old equipment left by operators at the well sites.

In June 1996, the Corporation Commission asked the EPA to assist in plugging the leaking wells because Oklahoma lacked funds to pay for the project.

Plugging costs have been estimated at about $2 per foot. The cost of the pilot project won't be known until the plugging work has been completed.

Most costs will be paid from the federal Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, administered by the U.S. Coast Guard, because surface water runoff from the area of the leaking wells is considered a threat to Lake Oologah, a part of the U.S. navigable waters system.

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Lake Oologah Plugging – 2

Mike Schmidt, Oil and Gas Division deputy director, said the Corporation Commission may be able to plug more than the approximately 200 wells in the pilot project.

"Federal funds will pay only for plugging abandoned wells considered an environmental threat to Lake Oologah. But federal funds also will reimburse the Corporation Commission for

its services, and this may provide funds for plugging some additional wells at state expense," Schmidt said.

The approximately 200 wells in the pilot project are in two sections in Rogers County. The future cleanup zone includes wells in 40 additional sections along the entire eastern shore of Lake Oologah in Rogers and Nowata counties.

No work plan for the larger project will be developed until the pilot project is completed and its performance evaluated, Battles said.

Many of the wells were drilled in the early 1900s and produced from the Bartlesville Sand formation. Many are fewer than 165 feet apart. They were abandoned either unplugged or plugged with early-century technology, which consisted of dropping a log down the bore hole and filling the rest of the hole with mud.

Extensive preparation for the plugging program was required because there are few records available concerning the location or condition of the nearly 100-year-old wells.

The Corporation Commission coordinated preparations that included an aerial survey of site conditions, use of satellite imagery and global positioning system data to help locate the well sites and infrared photographs to identify oil spills, on-site examination of the wells to determine their physical condition, record searches to determine well history and ownership and getting site entry permission from land surface owners.

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