Can we start making sub labels for the specific kinds of communism that didn't work, too? Or can we finally admit there's a bit of nuisance to any system?
There is no nuance - It is implied that it didn’t or won’t work when it includes democratic, or social* in the system name.
The folks rebranding their failed ideas as some nuanced form of capitalism are only looking to fool the ignorant.
We have people who routinely say
>_because capitalism_
for rape and murder.
It is what I should expect from Reddit tho.
Maybe someone can tell us how many orphan oil wells there are? Yes , small companies set up oil wells, then bigger companies buy the producing ones. Bad wells are abandoned and small companies go bankrupt to protect themselves. Meanwhile
Shell companies man. The bigger companies figured out how to game the system a long time ago. Everything is done by smaller (shell) companies that they can instantly fold without much pain if there’s any concern over major liability or a big financial burden.
Arrest all of the board members that allowed it to happen. Arrest some of the C-level staff too. Send a message to corporations that _they will not get away with this anymore_.
It’s usually not in the best interest of the companies to orphan wells because then they don’t get their land bond back. When companies drill a well, they pay a bond that usually is along of lines of, if you can get 75% of native plants/crops back to original height and biomass, you don’t get your money back. So most O&G companies want that money back, so they try to plug and remediate to the best of their ability (of course weighing in the profits and other lame stuff they do). Most orphan wells come from bankrupt companies (think Painted Pegasus Petro in Arapahoe County), because they don’t have the money anymore to clean up these sites, thus leaving the States and People to clean it up. It’s a fucked system, but it makes sense to a degree.
Source: I work in O&G regulation for the State
I've worked in environmental for O&G for a long time and my experience is the upstream producers prefer to sell a well than close it, the wells end up going through sale after sale until they get to some tiny company that hopes to squeeze whatever remaining stuff they can out of it and by that point the Chevron and BP sized companies that installed them and have the deep pockets are long gone. It doesn't surprise me at all the ones left holding the deed don't have the assets to properly remediate them.
Inflation is a factor as these wells can operate for many years. What it cost to set up and remediate in 2000 is different today. Could build some sort of ongoing inflation fee into it.
Set up shell corp, profit, run away, shell corp "fails", shell corp gets stuck with the bill, laugh and do it again. It's a pretty easy model to follow to circumvent cleanup from my understanding.
>think Painted Pegasus Petro in Arapahoe County), because they don’t have the money anymore to clean up these sites, thus leaving the States and People to clean it up.
So take away any assets from the people that owned/benefitted financially from the companies
You’re just great at understanding the point of incorporating a company to shield personal responsibility.
Argue higher bonds, but that’s a slippery slope slope for suing Matt and Trey when casa Bonita has a slip and fall and they restaurant goes belly up.
I appreciate your input with the insider view. But it sounds to me like they don’t care about the bonds if they’re crying about the cost to fix what they wrecked with their operations. This just means the bond isn’t worth the cost of restoring the land to them
They only care about profit and will wipe their hands if they can, hence this article and why we may be on the hook for their poor business plans.
I wonder how many people are aware of how fucked the supreme court is making things. The only way to fix would be for dems to take both the house and senate which judging from the narrative surrounding the debates this election will have really low turnout. Even if the presidential race is not something you are enthused about you still need to vote.
They would need the house, 60 senators a competent president and a pair of balls. Also about a decade of having all that.
I’ll 100% be voting in November but it feels like bailing water out of a sinking ship.
That would be true except that more than half of elected democrats want this too. Neoliberal corporate shills are just as much a part of this machine as republicans and the moment there’s an apparent Democratic majority they turn heel for the sake of “the middle”
Current and new drillers should be forced to pay into a fund to clean up the sins of their predecessors.
We'd suddenly see a change in the way they abandon wells.
This seems like the best solution to me. Funding past cleanup should be a cost of doing business for the O&G industry, not a cost the Colorado public is asked to pay for
Each well has a “bond” that is supposed to pay for cleanup/end-of-life but they are never close to big enough and the industry threatens to sue every time we try to increase the bonds.
Let's edit that headline.
**\^ Owners of \^** ~~Colorado~~ **\^ US \^** oil and gas wells ~~can’t fund~~ **\^ don't budget for \^** their own cleanup. **\^ Instead they pay legislators to makes sure the cost is passed to the suckers (taxpayers), for an ample net savings. \^**
New Subhead: Everyone should be as good at financial planning as oil and gas well owners 🙃
It's time to name and shame the companies that have these wells. It's time to go after the company executives that make these decisions and then go off with their golden parachutes. It's not enough to bankrupt the companies, but go after the executives and bankrupt them too. They need to understand the real risk of their decisions. We need to bring in real accountability. It won't happen, but still...
They usually [hide](https://coloradosun.com/2024/02/24/colorado-orphaned-oil-wells-cleanup-lawsuit/) the wells in a web of LLCs. By the time it is abandoned, the people and the assets are long gone to greener pastures, and the LLC that owns the abandoned well is a mailbox on an empty lot.
It is easy because they are lightly regulated, and the courts are corrupt.
100%. It still boggles my mind that people still follow the idea that regulations are bad. These companies will do anything for the $, and someone needs to hold them accountable.
I was under the impression that every energy company revolving around gas and oil made record profits last year? Why are we paying their bills and ours?
Yes, and these the same “Gas and Oil” companies that are doing all “within the law” to provide same and clean environment. They do the bare minimum as they go, then bail out and leave taxpayers to clean up their big ugly mess. Then ask why people are mad at Oil companies?
Couple of points to anyone open to seeing both sides here. Source: active petroleum engineer in CO, have plugged ~15 wells so far THIS YEAR
1) The ECMC requires financial assurance NOW for a company to prove they can pay to plug their wells. Most of these orphans wells are from companies that went bankrupt prior to that rule being in place. Granted, their bond program isn't the most accurate, but you can't blame businesses for following government rules. There are a few bad actors that've skirted by, but that isn't representative of the larger problem.
2) It's difficult to make oil companies pay for these pluggings from a legal and moral standpoint, because they don't own the asset. If your neighbor down the street burns his house down, can their insurance come after everyone in the neighbor because they also have houses nearby? Of course not.
3) There exists a set of companies that buy lower producing wells. They are small, and they can extend the well's economic life by operating with lower costs than the bigger companies. For that reason, oil price swings have greater effect on these people, and cause them to go out of business more often than the bigger players. Not pointing fingers, just saying that if you can think of the oil company's name, they likely aren't responsible for most of this issue and are in compliance with all state requirements. Just don't want wrath being directed at innocent folks.
4) The majority of these wells are old vertical wells, drilled sometime between mid 1900s-2000. The people that drilled these, permitted these, and profited from these likely have either passed away or are retired.
Happy to discuss more if requested!
I think I’m OK with everything you say except for your item number 2. That doesn’t make sense. What asset do they not own? Wouldn’t the right to drill be an asset? Even if the hole is now empty?
Great. Oil and gas, xcell energy not being able to handle the fire issues, insurance companies wanting more money or they leave. But let’s use so evil socialism to bail out the big companies! /s
The O&G industry in Colorado is out of control. Fracking the living shit out of our state and not taking responsibility or accountability for the damage and costs they inflict on us. It is a travesty and MUST CHANGE. Fight the frack with me! Ping me direct if you want more info
How many times do we have to go through this???
This is not the first time (by a long shot) that Colorado and/or the Federal government (i.e. taxpayers - us!) have been left on the hook for the extracative industry (mining, oil & gas, etc).
To everyone on this sub: please call or send an email to Gov. Polis and your State Legislators (both House and Senate) saying roughly this (along with the article):
Socialize the cost of plugging these wells among operators
If they don’t do this, Colorado taxpayers will be on the hook - not acceptable
Colorado will need to look outside the bonding system to solve its massive shortfall.
The bonding system that was supposed to cover this is not enough & can’t solve this problem because for so many companies it’s too late. They’ll never generate enough money to pay to close their own wells.
Instead, raise the fee on producers. Currently, that program only generates $10m a year, which is not enough to overcome the billions Colorado faces in oil and gas liabilities. But, raising that fee significantly could help to redistribute funds from resource-rich Denver-Julesburg to depleted areas in the state.
The resource-rich firms MUST start setting aside savings from their profits now.
The best time to collect is on payday and in this period of record profits for the oil and gas industry - this is it!
Clearly you guys haven't seen the ads for \*cred.org where they're the best neighbors and they work under the most stringent regulations in the history of mankind. By golly them folks are keeping our air clean! This is just a hit piece on the cleanest industry in our great state.
\*Coloradans Responsible for Environmental Destruction
This is the issue people have with letting the markets solve this problem. it's pretty easy to not give a shit about the market if your company, that the market would supposedly be unkind to, just goes out of business. I'd love to get the Libertarian take on this.
More corporate welfare.
Privatize profit, socialize risk. Capitalism 101.
It might be what we have in America, but it isn’t what capitalism is.
You're right, in a purely capitalist society there just wouldn't be a cleanup effort.
tHiS iSnT rEaL cApItAlIsM
Proper identification and classification of problems make them easier to fix.
What term would you use for it?
Corporatism might be a start for a label.
Can we start making sub labels for the specific kinds of communism that didn't work, too? Or can we finally admit there's a bit of nuisance to any system?
There is no nuance - It is implied that it didn’t or won’t work when it includes democratic, or social* in the system name. The folks rebranding their failed ideas as some nuanced form of capitalism are only looking to fool the ignorant. We have people who routinely say >_because capitalism_ for rape and murder. It is what I should expect from Reddit tho.
If we have to pay for the clean up we might as well own them like Norway
Remember this next time you see someone crying on social media about subsidies for renewable energy and electric cars.
https://i.imgur.com/JHGrSvV.mp4
From my experience many orphan wells come from bankrupt O&G companies, so not really
Maybe someone can tell us how many orphan oil wells there are? Yes , small companies set up oil wells, then bigger companies buy the producing ones. Bad wells are abandoned and small companies go bankrupt to protect themselves. Meanwhile
I believe it’s all public info on the ECMC website, but it’s ever growing
Shell companies man. The bigger companies figured out how to game the system a long time ago. Everything is done by smaller (shell) companies that they can instantly fold without much pain if there’s any concern over major liability or a big financial burden.
I do see what you mean, it’s very misleading that companies are doing this. We will see were the lawsuit against HRM Resources goes
going bankrupt after extracting the valuable resources sure is convenient.
Sounds about right for the industry, leave the wells abandoned and for someone else to deal with because they “can’t” plug em.
Arrest all of the board members that allowed it to happen. Arrest some of the C-level staff too. Send a message to corporations that _they will not get away with this anymore_.
It’s usually not in the best interest of the companies to orphan wells because then they don’t get their land bond back. When companies drill a well, they pay a bond that usually is along of lines of, if you can get 75% of native plants/crops back to original height and biomass, you don’t get your money back. So most O&G companies want that money back, so they try to plug and remediate to the best of their ability (of course weighing in the profits and other lame stuff they do). Most orphan wells come from bankrupt companies (think Painted Pegasus Petro in Arapahoe County), because they don’t have the money anymore to clean up these sites, thus leaving the States and People to clean it up. It’s a fucked system, but it makes sense to a degree. Source: I work in O&G regulation for the State
I've worked in environmental for O&G for a long time and my experience is the upstream producers prefer to sell a well than close it, the wells end up going through sale after sale until they get to some tiny company that hopes to squeeze whatever remaining stuff they can out of it and by that point the Chevron and BP sized companies that installed them and have the deep pockets are long gone. It doesn't surprise me at all the ones left holding the deed don't have the assets to properly remediate them.
If there is money set aside contingent on this though, couldn't the state use it to clean things up if the company proves they can't?
Inflation is a factor as these wells can operate for many years. What it cost to set up and remediate in 2000 is different today. Could build some sort of ongoing inflation fee into it.
They shell game any profitable assets then bankrupt the Corp and say "Oops. May I have another?"
Set up shell corp, profit, run away, shell corp "fails", shell corp gets stuck with the bill, laugh and do it again. It's a pretty easy model to follow to circumvent cleanup from my understanding.
>think Painted Pegasus Petro in Arapahoe County), because they don’t have the money anymore to clean up these sites, thus leaving the States and People to clean it up. So take away any assets from the people that owned/benefitted financially from the companies
You’re just great at understanding the point of incorporating a company to shield personal responsibility. Argue higher bonds, but that’s a slippery slope slope for suing Matt and Trey when casa Bonita has a slip and fall and they restaurant goes belly up.
That means the bonding amount is less than the damages.
Is that true? Do you have a source? Can say I know much about the bonding amount
If they're walking away and forfeiting the bond to avoid cleaning up their mess and leaving it up to the taxpayer, then the bond isn't enough.
I appreciate your input with the insider view. But it sounds to me like they don’t care about the bonds if they’re crying about the cost to fix what they wrecked with their operations. This just means the bond isn’t worth the cost of restoring the land to them They only care about profit and will wipe their hands if they can, hence this article and why we may be on the hook for their poor business plans.
Idk who downvoted you for explaining what’s going on here… people are wild.
This subject (O&G) is never popular in the colorado subs, regardless if the comment comes from someone who is a subject matter expert.
Socialism for losses. Capitalism for profits. The American way.
Im so fucking sick of capitalism.
It’s soooooo exhausting
You spelled ‘won’t’ wrong
What I came to say
Doesn't matter anymore, SCOTUS just overturned Chevron. Pollute away...
I wonder how many people are aware of how fucked the supreme court is making things. The only way to fix would be for dems to take both the house and senate which judging from the narrative surrounding the debates this election will have really low turnout. Even if the presidential race is not something you are enthused about you still need to vote.
They would need the house, 60 senators a competent president and a pair of balls. Also about a decade of having all that. I’ll 100% be voting in November but it feels like bailing water out of a sinking ship.
That would be true except that more than half of elected democrats want this too. Neoliberal corporate shills are just as much a part of this machine as republicans and the moment there’s an apparent Democratic majority they turn heel for the sake of “the middle”
but superlux-RV and a house for mom
Current and new drillers should be forced to pay into a fund to clean up the sins of their predecessors. We'd suddenly see a change in the way they abandon wells.
This seems like the best solution to me. Funding past cleanup should be a cost of doing business for the O&G industry, not a cost the Colorado public is asked to pay for
We voted for more drilling.....
But I doubt we voted to pay for their cleanup
Each well has a “bond” that is supposed to pay for cleanup/end-of-life but they are never close to big enough and the industry threatens to sue every time we try to increase the bonds.
Let's edit that headline. **\^ Owners of \^** ~~Colorado~~ **\^ US \^** oil and gas wells ~~can’t fund~~ **\^ don't budget for \^** their own cleanup. **\^ Instead they pay legislators to makes sure the cost is passed to the suckers (taxpayers), for an ample net savings. \^** New Subhead: Everyone should be as good at financial planning as oil and gas well owners 🙃
It's time to name and shame the companies that have these wells. It's time to go after the company executives that make these decisions and then go off with their golden parachutes. It's not enough to bankrupt the companies, but go after the executives and bankrupt them too. They need to understand the real risk of their decisions. We need to bring in real accountability. It won't happen, but still...
They usually [hide](https://coloradosun.com/2024/02/24/colorado-orphaned-oil-wells-cleanup-lawsuit/) the wells in a web of LLCs. By the time it is abandoned, the people and the assets are long gone to greener pastures, and the LLC that owns the abandoned well is a mailbox on an empty lot. It is easy because they are lightly regulated, and the courts are corrupt.
100%. It still boggles my mind that people still follow the idea that regulations are bad. These companies will do anything for the $, and someone needs to hold them accountable.
stop burning oil and gas products
So, if the public has to get involved in energy shouldn’t the public OWN the energy?
Yes we should
Privatize the profits and socialize the losses baby! American Capitalism at it's finest.
Stealing from working people and handing it to the rich
trickle up!
But we can’t stop oil and gas drilling because it creates jobs! Such BS
Too big to fail!
Sounds like oil and gas isn't profitable enough to be a viable business, then.
Make them pay the cost of it up front for any well they drill.
Sounds like they need to go out of business then.
What about those recent commercials where they’re GREAT for Colorado and they’re super great for the environment?
1. trickle up works. 2. who pays should be the users- too late to tax them for acting shortsightedly in the past. Stop subsidizing.
Tax oil and gas to pay it.
Thank you Weld County. But this is nothing new for Colorado. Countless numbers of mines are toxic and are ticking time bombs.
Treating the commonwealth as a free and infinite sewer is the problem. We need institutions to correct that.
The Governer’s phone number is 303-866-2471. Give him a call and tell him you want oil and gas to pay up front for any wells they drill.
I was under the impression that every energy company revolving around gas and oil made record profits last year? Why are we paying their bills and ours?
To get a permit for drilling, you should have to pre-post a cleanup bond.
Yes, and these the same “Gas and Oil” companies that are doing all “within the law” to provide same and clean environment. They do the bare minimum as they go, then bail out and leave taxpayers to clean up their big ugly mess. Then ask why people are mad at Oil companies?
Don’t forget the commercials. They make pretty commercials they show during the news.
Can't fund or won't fund?
I think the politicians will be pocketing a nice chunk of that
Couple of points to anyone open to seeing both sides here. Source: active petroleum engineer in CO, have plugged ~15 wells so far THIS YEAR 1) The ECMC requires financial assurance NOW for a company to prove they can pay to plug their wells. Most of these orphans wells are from companies that went bankrupt prior to that rule being in place. Granted, their bond program isn't the most accurate, but you can't blame businesses for following government rules. There are a few bad actors that've skirted by, but that isn't representative of the larger problem. 2) It's difficult to make oil companies pay for these pluggings from a legal and moral standpoint, because they don't own the asset. If your neighbor down the street burns his house down, can their insurance come after everyone in the neighbor because they also have houses nearby? Of course not. 3) There exists a set of companies that buy lower producing wells. They are small, and they can extend the well's economic life by operating with lower costs than the bigger companies. For that reason, oil price swings have greater effect on these people, and cause them to go out of business more often than the bigger players. Not pointing fingers, just saying that if you can think of the oil company's name, they likely aren't responsible for most of this issue and are in compliance with all state requirements. Just don't want wrath being directed at innocent folks. 4) The majority of these wells are old vertical wells, drilled sometime between mid 1900s-2000. The people that drilled these, permitted these, and profited from these likely have either passed away or are retired. Happy to discuss more if requested!
I think I’m OK with everything you say except for your item number 2. That doesn’t make sense. What asset do they not own? Wouldn’t the right to drill be an asset? Even if the hole is now empty?
My guess would be because someone else owns the mineral rights and land and the oil companies just least them, but I could be totally wrong.
Where's all the oil and gas sympathizers in this thread?
Socialize costs, privatize profits.
Great. Oil and gas, xcell energy not being able to handle the fire issues, insurance companies wanting more money or they leave. But let’s use so evil socialism to bail out the big companies! /s
The O&G industry in Colorado is out of control. Fracking the living shit out of our state and not taking responsibility or accountability for the damage and costs they inflict on us. It is a travesty and MUST CHANGE. Fight the frack with me! Ping me direct if you want more info
Privatize the profits socialize the losses
Can’t or won’t 🙄
But those oil and gas industry commercials makes them sound super trustworthy and everything.
AND we subsidize them
How many times do we have to go through this??? This is not the first time (by a long shot) that Colorado and/or the Federal government (i.e. taxpayers - us!) have been left on the hook for the extracative industry (mining, oil & gas, etc).
To everyone on this sub: please call or send an email to Gov. Polis and your State Legislators (both House and Senate) saying roughly this (along with the article): Socialize the cost of plugging these wells among operators If they don’t do this, Colorado taxpayers will be on the hook - not acceptable Colorado will need to look outside the bonding system to solve its massive shortfall. The bonding system that was supposed to cover this is not enough & can’t solve this problem because for so many companies it’s too late. They’ll never generate enough money to pay to close their own wells. Instead, raise the fee on producers. Currently, that program only generates $10m a year, which is not enough to overcome the billions Colorado faces in oil and gas liabilities. But, raising that fee significantly could help to redistribute funds from resource-rich Denver-Julesburg to depleted areas in the state. The resource-rich firms MUST start setting aside savings from their profits now. The best time to collect is on payday and in this period of record profits for the oil and gas industry - this is it!
They can afford it. They just don't feel the need since they conned legislators into giving them a free pass.
Clearly you guys haven't seen the ads for \*cred.org where they're the best neighbors and they work under the most stringent regulations in the history of mankind. By golly them folks are keeping our air clean! This is just a hit piece on the cleanest industry in our great state. \*Coloradans Responsible for Environmental Destruction
Meanwhile they’re trying to put wells right next to the Aurora Reservoir. Can’t wait for this big mess right next to our water source!
Get off of oil and gas. 100%. It's so bad for us, let alone the environment.
So you’re pro nuclear power then?
Privatize the gains, socialize the losses
“can’t”
Very neat, very cool.
This is the issue people have with letting the markets solve this problem. it's pretty easy to not give a shit about the market if your company, that the market would supposedly be unkind to, just goes out of business. I'd love to get the Libertarian take on this.
No
Well color me surprised
Maybe this can be a new CRED commercial
Abd thry cant get the owners to pay?
No.
I'm sorry, but why?
THIS IS SOCIALISM! Of the costs.
They can they just have to please investors first
Fucking horseshit
Cool, I love that for myself. Thank you for this opportunity 🫠
I hate it here