"Diversified Energy’s liabilities exceed its assets, according to a new report, sparking concerns about whether taxpayers will wind up paying to plug its 70,000 wells."
"PITTSBURGH — Diversified Energy Company, the largest owner of oil and gas wells in the country, might abandon up to 70,000 oil and gas wells throughout Appalachia without plugging them, according to a new report.
The company, headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama, spent the last five years acquiring tens of thousands of aging, low-producing conventional oil and gas wells and some fracking wells primarily in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and Kentucky. Conventional oil and gas wells are traditional wells where fossil fuels are extracted through vertical boreholes.
A new report, published by the Ohio River Valley Institute, a progressive think tank, finds that the company’s financial liabilities exceeded its assets by more than $300 million in June
2022. According to the report’s authors, it’s rare for an oil and gas company’s liabilities to exceed its assets to this extent, prompting concerns that Diversified Energy will go bankrupt without plugging its wells."
Kristina Marusic reports for The Daily Climate January 23, 2023.
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