(WO) – On June 8, a Rebellion Energy Solutions methane-abatement and land-restoration project became the first orphan oil-and-gas well plugging project to be listed by the American Carbon Registry. Rebellion’s project, for which it completed operations last month, is designed to generate durable, verifiable carbon-offset credits under ACR’s recently finalized methodology.
Rebellion’s Heartland Methane Abatement and Land Restoration Project immediately and permanently abates approximately 74,000 metric tons CO2e as a result of plugging methane-emitting orphan wells in a historic Oklahoma oil field. That volume of CO2e abated in this project is equivalent to approximately 8.3 million gallons of gasoline consumed, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s greenhouse gas equivalencies calculator. The project also ties to key United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and mitigates legacy impacts for landowners and surrounding communities.
Rebellion designed its Heartland Project to meet or exceed standards in the American Carbon Registry’s recently finalized methodology for creating carbon credits from the reduction in methane emissions by plugging orphan oil and gas wells. Rebellion’s business model for methane-abatement and land-restoration projects provides a sustainable platform for project funding through sales of durable, verifiable carbon-offset credits generated under the ACR framework.
“Rebellion’s Heartland Methane Abatement and Land Restoration Project was ideally positioned to become the first-of-its-kind methane-abatement project listed by the American Carbon Registry,” says Staci Taruscio, Chief Executive Officer of Rebellion Energy Solutions. “We developed and completed operations of this project with the American Carbon Registry framework in mind – having participated in its development and observed the public comment and scientific peer review stages over the last two years.”
“By employing both the economic incentive of carbon markets and oil-and-gas expertise, the ACR framework will lead to the permanent clean-up of legacy wells that otherwise would not be addressed. The result is a sustainable platform for environmental benefit, investment, job creation – and a catalyst for modernized regulatory policy,” Taruscio says.
The wells plugged in Rebellion’s Heartland Project are more than 40 years old and have been unattended for more than a decade – with no ongoing maintenance or plugging activity to responsibly complete the lifecycle of the well. Rebellion assumed ownership of the wells and privately funded the project to plug the wells; no State or Federal funds were utilized. Carbon credits can help get wells plugged and permanently halt decades of methane emissions, providing an incentive to target the worst offenders.
Rebellion’s Heartland Project targeted well sites on two cattle-grazing and bluestem prairie-grass ranches in Oklahoma. These lands have been home over many decades to oil and gas wells that were developed by entities that owned the rights to the minerals below the surface.
Among what is left today of that development are unplugged orphan oil and gas wells, which may appear as pipes jutting out of the ground or even just a hole in the ground. While the entities that developed the wells no longer exist, the families and the cattle remain, along with what – prior to Rebellion’s Heartland Project – were unknown methane emissions, damaged land, surface safety hazards and potential harm to water sources and ecosystems.
