Oil Well Plugging in Rend Lake

摘要

Replugging of old oil and gas wells in preparation for mining through is no longer a new or unusual undertaking. Consol and others have been performing such operations for years. The difficulty lies in how to access the wells, and what conditions the abandoned wells are in. Such were problems surrounding the 37 abandoned oil wells in the east reserves of the Rend Lake Mine. We had to deal with old wells in water depths ranging from 2 to 20 feet, in the middle of an 18,000-acre recreation and water supply lake, and also in a wildlife refuge. We were only allowed in the refuge area from May 1~(st) through September 30~(th) each year to prevent us from disturbing migratory waterfowl. Well plugging affidavits were questionable at best. The Consol Exploration Group started identifying, locating, and even attempted accessing these wells I the late 1980's. Eventually, the project became the responsibility of the operations engineering group in Illinois.