124-2 Testing Methodologies for Locating and Measuring Emissions from Orphaned Oil and Gas Wells in Western Pennsylvania

Session: Fixing the Silent Leak: Identifying, Quantifying, Prioritizing, and Mitigating the Environmental and Health Impacts of Legacy Oil and Gas Drilling in North America

Presenting Author:

Margaret Coleman

Authors:

Coleman, Margaret¹, Peltz, Adam S.², Keown, Neil³, Hegburg, Don P.⁴, Adams, David⁵, Gainer, Shawn⁶, Pekney, Natalie⁷, Hammack, Richard⁸, Boutot, Jade⁹, France, James¹⁰, Kang, Mary¹¹, Viswanathan, Hari¹²

(1) Environmental Defense Fund, New York, New York, USA, (2) Environmental Defense Fund, New York, New York, USA, (3) Sawback Technologies, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, (4) Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, Office of Oil and Gas Management, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, USA, (5) Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, Office of Oil and Gas Management, Knox, Pennsylvania, USA, (6) Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, Bureau of Oil & Gas Planning and Program Management, Harrisburg, PA, USA, (7) U.S. Department of Energy, National Energy Technology Laboratory, Pittsburgh, PA, USA, (8) U.S. Department of Energy, National Energy Technology Laboratory, Pittsburgh, PA, USA, (9) Department of Civil Engineering, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, (10) Office of Science, Environmental Defense Fund, Spelthorne, England, United Kingdom; Royal Holloway, University of London, London, England, United Kingdom, (11) Department of Civil Engineering, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, (12) U.S. Department of Energy, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, USA,

Abstract:

There are over 30,000 documented orphan oil and gas wells in Pennsylvania with estimates of an additional 300,000 to 700,000 undocumented wells. Developing methodologies to efficiently and cost effectively locate these wells remains a challenge for oil and gas regulators across the U.S. In collaboration with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, the US Department of Energy’s Orphan Well Program, McGill University, and Sawback Technologies, we present the Environmental Defense Fund-led drone and ground geophysical surveys in northwest Pennsylvania designed to test methods to locate undocumented wells and measure their methane emissions. Machine learning algorithms analyzed data from a drone magnetic survey, collected over 8 square miles of mountainous terrain, and yielded 257 target anomalies. ~230 of the sites were accessible by ground truthing field technicians, of which 36 are verified as previously documented well sites, 33 are undocumented wells with above ground features, and 22 likely wells buried beneath a former strip mine. Initial field verification using metal detectors and visual inspection confirmed 35% of predicted locations to be wells (both documented and undocumented), whereas an additional verification survey using ground magnetometers verified 65% of ~50 accessible predicted locations within a strip-mined area to have distinctive signatures of undocumented buried wells. In addition, 30 undocumented wells were verified to match historic well locations on historical US Geological Survey topographic maps. The Environmental Defense Fund will also share insights on the potential for detecting methane emissions from wells using drone-based tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy, an emerging technology for methane monitoring, and the challenges and successes of a collaborative approach to large scale area identification, and public outreach.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 57, No. 6, 2025

doi: 10.1130/abs/2025AM-7909

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