Colorado oil and gas wells can’t fund their own cleanup. Taxpayers may foot the bill
www.theguardian.com
A Carbon Tracker report shows the cost to safely shut down low-producing wells is $3bn more than what they earn
    • silence7@slrpnk.netOPM
      8·
      11 months ago

      That’s the idea: extract the oil, pay out everything as dividends or share buybacks, and then sell the well to a doomed-to-fail company which can declare bankruptcy and leave the public responsible for cleaning up the mess. The oil industry has a long history of taking advantage of inadequate bond requirements for oil wells to do exactly that.