BLM awards contract to plug eight abandoned wells near Umiat

Petroleum News

The Bureau of Land Management said April 27 that it has awarded Olgoonik Environmental Services of Wainwright, Alaska, a contract to plug eight abandoned oil wells near Umiat on Alaska’s North Slope.

The agency said contractors will be working until the job is completed or approximately May 15 when climatic conditions will no longer permit tundra travel. Work will resume next winter if necessary.

BLM said well remediation on the North Slope, particularly in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, is expensive due to lack of infrastructure and the remote locations of the wells.

The wells to be plugged are test wells drilled by the U.S. Navy in the 1940s as part of an exploration program in the petroleum reserve to determine the feasibility of modern petroleum exploration and production methods under arctic conditions, the agency said. Other test wells were drilled by the U.S. Geological Survey from 1976 to 1981.

BLM is now responsible for more than 100 historic “legacy” wells in the NPR-A. The agency said it has completed a field and literature inventory of the wells and developed a plan to minimize any hazards to humans and the environment.

The wells near Umiat are the first wells to be plugged by BLM and the agency said it will continue the remediation effort as funding becomes available.