Three days before a state deadline, Storm Cat Energy, a bankrupt coal bed methane company that owed Wyoming $10.8 million, received approval to unload hundreds of wells on another company for nearly nothing, the Casper (Wyo.) Star-Tribune reported today. Storm Cat went under after the price of natural gas plummeted. Large companies, seeing the writing on the wall for the market, stepped out of the coal bed methane game years ago. Smaller companies bought those wells and pits but were often financially weak, falling into bankruptcy as the price continued to decline. Since 2014, 4,681 wells have been left idle on state and private land. Using a tax on operators, Wyoming's Oil and Gas Conservation Commission has fewer than half of them.Wyoming could have seized Storm Cat's insufficient reclamation bonds. Its 2,432 idle wells would have become orphans, adding to a long list of such wells the state and federal agencies have to clean up.
