World Energy Data · Decommissioning · Abandon stage (issue #777)
8,161 GoM boreholes are drilled but not yet permanently plugged (3,288 temporarily abandoned + 4,873 completed/open). At the decommissioning model's GoM P&A cost of $8–9M per shelf well (deepwater wells run higher, ~$26M each), that is $65.3B – $72.6B of latent P&A liability — and the 3,288 already-idled wells ($26.3B) are the imminent, overdue crest.
Vintage = the decade each borehole entered its current BSEE status
(BOREHOLE_STAT_DT). Wells idled in earlier decades are the most overdue: the deeper
the vintage, the longer the plug-or-justify clock has run.
| Vintage decade | Temp. abandoned | Completed / open | Forward P&A wells | Liability @ $8M | Already plugged |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| pre-1980 | 67 | 590 | 657 | $5.3B | 6,366 |
| 1980s | 114 | 772 | 886 | $7.1B | 4,771 |
| 1990s | 271 | 884 | 1,155 | $9.2B | 5,171 |
| 2000s | 605 | 1,297 | 1,902 | $15.2B | 5,888 |
| 2010s | 1,484 | 988 | 2,472 | $19.8B | 6,289 |
| 2020s | 747 | 342 | 1,089 | $8.7B | 1,914 |
| Undated | 0 | 0 | 0 | $0.0B | 1 |
| Total | 3,288 | 4,873 | 8,161 | $65.3B | 30,400 |
well_p_and_a = $8.0M base + $0.015M per m water depth × GoM multiplier 1.0.
Reference points: base / shelf floor $8M (depth term = 0);
shelf ~60 m $8.9M;
shelf edge ~200 m $11M;
deep water ~1209 m $26M
(model confidence: medium). The headline liability range prices the whole
forward population at the shelf band ($8–9M/well), where the
GoM P&A backlog overwhelmingly sits; the deepwater figure is per-well escalation, not applied to every
well (the data does not carry a per-well depth to weight the mix). Cited P&A cost benchmark, not a project quote.
Forward P&A demand context. The GoM intervention-access brief already flags heavy dead-well work — tubing pull / recompletion / P&A — as forward-looking rig-day demand across every water-depth band, with the deep bands short of GoM-resident heavy-intervention units (e.g. 5,000–10,000 ft: ~4.4× the resident rig-days). That access gap is the SUPPLY side of the same wave this page prices on the LIABILITY side; the demand figures are cited from the brief, not recomputed here.
Global companion. This page is the Gulf-of-Mexico well P&A wave. The regional decommissioning-liability view prices the global facility portfolio (836 offshore facilities, 5 regions) and shows why floating production — not the North Sea's fixed jackets — carries most of the modeled $17.5B removal bill.
data/modules/bsee/current/wells/well_data.csv
— 57,281 boreholes. Status mix: PA 30,400 · ST 17,559 · COM 4,873
· TA 3,288 · CNL 1,005 · other 153.
Sidetrack (ST) and cancelled/permit (CNL/DSI/APD) boreholes are
excluded from the forward P&A count (not standalone plug units).WATER_DEPTH is populated for only 100 of 57,281
boreholes, so the cost model's depth term cannot be applied per well; every $ figure is priced at the GoM
P&A base ($8M) as a floor, with the shelf-to-deepwater band shown separately. Counts are boreholes,
not distinct wellbores (a re-entered well may carry multiple status records). "Completed/open" includes active
producers whose P&A obligation is real but not yet due; the temporarily-abandoned tier is the imminent
subset. Cost factors are parametric industry benchmarks (model confidence: medium), not project estimates.scripts/decommissioning/build_pa_liability_wave.py · cost model
worldenergydata.decommissioning.cost_model · regs BSEE NTL 2018-N02.