Orphaned wells and reclamation

The Oil and Gas Division of the North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources says every operator must carry the financial assurance and bonds required of it, and must plug its wells properly and reclaim the land. The Division's Bismarck office directs the reclamation program, whose specialists work with field inspectors on reclaiming pads at the end of their life, spills, illegal dumping and what the Division calls "legacy" brine ponds. For orphaned wells, federal grants under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) have paid for plugging and reclamation.

In a Phase I ESA

ASTM E1527-21 does not name orphan or abandoned well lists among its standard record sources. The general reading of a well at or near a property is on Oil or gas well on or near the subject property.

• Reclamation ends with a bond release. North Dakota rules, as the Division sums them up, define reclamation as returning a site, its access road and associated facilities as close as practicable to original condition. The work takes in removing equipment, waste or contamination and debris, removing gravel or other surfacing, remediating stabilized soil, spreading stockpiled topsoil and, where it applies, reseeding with native species, and it can take years. Reclamation is not finished until the state has released the company's bond on the site. On a former well pad, ask whether the bond was released.
• The Division reports completed and pending reclamation. The Division counts more than 18,500 well and facility sites reclaimed, sites built but never drilled among them, and 2,160 in the reclamation process awaiting the state's approval for bond release. It says fewer than 1% of sites need long-term environmental evaluation.
• Plugging has more than one cause. The Division says a well is typically plugged and its surface reclaimed by its operator once it reaches its economic limit and serves no future purpose, and that plugging and reclamation may also follow a dry hole or an abandoned or orphaned well, among other situations. The reclamation page links a document on well status designations, a PDF this handbook did not open.
• The number of abandoned wells is unknown. The initial grant page says the exact number of abandoned wells in North Dakota is not known, given the state's long history of oil and gas exploration, and lists identifying and characterizing undocumented orphaned wells on state and private land among the grant's uses.
• Federal grants plug orphaned wells. The IIJA provided $25 million to the North Dakota Industrial Commission to plug, remediate and restore orphaned well sites on state-owned or privately owned land. Over the whole initial grant, the Division says, it oversaw the plugging of 73 orphaned wells and reclamation work on 115 orphaned well sites, 112 of them completed. Under the formula grant it reports 14 wells plugged, costing $1.1 million in all, and does not expect more plugging under the first phase of formula grant funds for the rest of the year; it has identified 22 sites that need reclamation. The formula grant page's latest updates are dated September 18 and October 6, 2026.
• Old brine ponds are being restored. Under the formula grant the Division has restored 6 brine ponds at an average of about $500,000 a site, and expects to restore 20 for about $10 million if costs hold steady. The reclamation page links a Brine Pond Assessment Study, labeled with House Bill 1347 of the 65th session, a PDF this handbook did not open. Where an old brine pond was on or near the property, ask the Division about it.
• Landowners are told before the work. The initial grant page links a letter sent to landowners about "confiscated wells" on their property, and says the proposed reclamation plan is sent to the landowner at least ten days before work begins. It cites section 43-02-03-34.1, Reclamation of surface, as part of the North Dakota Century Code; the Division's rules page lists chapter 43-02-03 under the North Dakota Administrative Code. Ask the owner whether such a letter or plan arrived.
• What counts as orphaned is set by policy. The rules page links an Orphaned Well Definition Policy under its well plugging heading, a PDF this handbook did not open.

Where to look a site up

• The Initial Grant Information - Plugging and Reclamation and Phase I - Formula Grant Information pages link the bid packages, the progress updates and, for the initial grant, a final data tracking sheet, as PDFs and spreadsheets this handbook did not open.
• The Reclamation & Remediation page links the Division's Reclamation Stages Guidelines, a PDF this handbook did not open.
• A well's status, its file and the Division's contacts are found as the Oil and gas well records page describes.
• Written questions about the initial grant go to DMR Oil and Gas Division, 600 E Blvd Ave-Dept 474, Bismarck, ND 58505-0614.

Getting the file

The pages read give no records route for grant or reclamation files apart from the address for written questions above. How to find a well and reach the Division is on the Oil and gas well records page.

Sources

North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources pages, read October 17, 2026, no modified date shown:

• Reclamation & Remediation
• Initial Grant Information - Plugging and Reclamation
• Phase I - Formula Grant Information
• Rules, Regulations & Policies