Orphan and Idle Wells in Louisiana

Gregory B. Upton Jr., LSU Center for Energy Studies; Mark Agerton, UC Davis Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics; Ipsita Gupta, LSU Department of Petroleum Engineering; Kanchan Maiti, LSU Department of Oceanography & Coastal Sciences; Siddhartha Narra, LSU Center for Energy Studies; Brian Snyder, LSU Department of Environmental Sciences; and Joanna Walker, LSU Center for Energy Studies, have co-authored a report titled "Orphan and Idle Wells in Louisiana," published in July 2025.

Researchers at LSU were tasked by the Louisiana Department of Energy and Natural Resources (DENR) to estimate the costs of plugging orphan and idle wells and assess methane emissions from orphan wells. This report provides background on the Louisiana Oilfield Site Restoration (OSR) program created in 1993 and estimates the total cost to plug orphan and idle wells. In 2023, the OSR Program’s efforts were augmented by federal funds from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), which allocated $4.7 billion for orphan well site plugging, remediation, and restoration across the U.S. Louisiana has received an initial $25 million grant and anticipates receiving approximately $156 million in additional grant funds over the next several years.

Orphan well funding is allocated under Section 40601 of the IIJA, which aims to mitigate methane emissions. This analysis estimates the total methane emissions from orphan wells and assesses the economic impact of the program.

Below are the key findings of the report:

  • While the vast majority of Louisiana’s 224,000 oil and gas wells drilled are either currently producing or have been plugged and abandoned (P&Aed), there are approximately 19,500 idle wells and 4,900 orphan wells in the state as of March 2025 that are yet to be P&Aed. For perspective, approximately 4% of wells ever drilled in Louisiana have been declared orphaned.
  • The rate at which new orphan wells are being added to the orphan well list has outpaced the rate of well plugging in recent years. Further, wells drilled over the past decade are still being added to the orphan well list, indicating that this is not simply a legacy issue for the state. Although IIJA funds will assist with plugging a meaningful share of the state’s orphan wells, these funds are not estimated to be sufficient to plug the state’s backlog of orphan wells.
  • Despite the current backlog of orphaned wells continuing to grow as plugging operations lag behind new additions, the scheduled increase in OSR fees in July 2025 is expected to provide additional funding to support plugging activities. Specifically, the Legislative Fiscal Office (LFO) estimated that the increased fee will boost OSR fund collections by approximately 18 percent.
  • The estimated cost to P&A all orphan and idle wells in Louisiana’s Monroe and Shreveport districts is about $860 million. For comparison, Louisiana is slated to receive approximately $156 million in IIJA funds. Note that costs for the wells located in Lafayette district, which account for approximately 41% of the state’s orphan and idle wells, are not included in this report, and will thus add costs.
  • Methane emissions from orphan and idle wells vary widely, with a small number of wells contributing disproportionately to total emissions. Contractors detected methane at 23% of measured wells using the Hi-Flow method, while LSU researchers using the chamber method detected methane at 96% of measured wells. This difference is logical, as the chamber measurement has a much lower detection threshold.
  • The analysis estimates that the initial $25 million federal grant received in 2023 through IIJA supported approximately 120 jobs and generated $16.4 million in value added to the state’s economy from well decommissioning activities conducted since approximately January 2023.
  • Utilizing the remainder of the funding through the IIJA is estimated to support approximately $11 million in wages, $23 million in value added, and 167 jobs per year over the estimated five years it will take to utilize the funds.
  • Potential methane abatement from plugging all orphan wells in northern Louisiana is estimated at 868 to 1,171 t CH4/yr based on our measurement techniques. For perspective, at current natural gas prices, these annual emissions represent approximately $217–292 thousand worth of natural gas. Put another way, these emissions have the energy content equivalent to approximately 435–585 thousand gallons of gasoline per year. Note that these estimates do not include orphan wells in southern Louisiana, which would further increase the abatement potential.
  • Analysis of different plugging strategies under various scenarios suggests that quantifying emissions before plugging could significantly improve the methane abated for a given program cost. In other words, if the goal of the program is methane emissions reductions, the most plausible effective strategy is to measure many wells and plug the large leakers. The tradeoff of this strategy is that fewer wells will ultimately be plugged for a given budget.

 

Read the report here and the technical appendix here.