Alaska sues North Slope oil and gas operators over three almost-abandoned wells

The logo of the Alaska Department of Natural Resources is seen on Tuesday, June 14, 2022, outside the office of the commissioner in Juneau, Alaska. (James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)

By James Brooks

Alaska Beacon

Acting like a waiter presenting a divided restaurant dinner table with the bill, the Alaska Department of Natural Resources filed suit against nine different North Slope oil and gas operators last month, seeking to determine who is financially responsible for three semi-abandoned wells.

The state’s voluminous 59-page complaint, filed in Anchorage Superior Court, represents an extraordinary act by DNR, which typically resolves well-ownership disputes short of a courtroom.

But the former Beechey Point Unit, a small oil and gas field north of Prudhoe Bay, has been a regulatory headache for more than 15 years now, and the three wells named in the complaint were the subject of a record $6.3 million fine by the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission last year.  

That fine was levied against Brooks Range Petroleum, a firm is one of the nine named in DNR’s lawsuit. The other eight are AVCG, Brooks Range Development Corp., CaraCol Petroleum, MEP Alaska, Nabors Drilling Technologies USA, Ramshorn Investments, TG World Energy and TP North Slope Development.

The nine represent the operator and working interest owners of Beechey Point, and the suit asks a state judge to order the nine to assume financial responsibility for the plugging and final closure of three still-open wells in the coastal region defined by Beechey Point. 

Under the state’s lease agreement, the users of Beechey Point were required “to restore and rehabilitate the land to the satisfaction of the Department of Natural Resources within six months after lease termination.”

That hasn’t happened, the suit claims, making the former operator and leaseholders financially responsible for the state.

Across the country, orphaned oil and gas wells are a significant environmental and safety hazard. Louisiana alone had almost 5,000 documented orphaned wells in 2024.

As of 2024, Alaska had 45 such wells, one dating to 1901. Several were part of the Katalla oil boom that took place east of Cordova in the first decade of the 20th century.

In 2024, the state seized a $200,000 bond from a bankrupt oil and gas company to seal an orphaned well in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough.

The three wells identified in last month’s lawsuit are not formally orphaned, DNR said, and the suit amounts to an attempt to prove paternity. 

Online court records show the case has been preliminarily assigned to Judge David Roghair; no proceedings have yet been scheduled.

• James Brooks Cascade is a longtime Alaska reporter who lives in Juneau. He previously worked at the Anchorage Daily News, Juneau Empire, Kodiak Mirror and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. Alaska Beacon is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.