The opportunity is national. The work is local.
Public records define the universe of wells. They cannot identify the atmospheric heavy tail. Geography narrows the search; measurement decides where permanent closure delivers the greatest avoidable methane benefit.
Administrative inventories are not emissions inventories.
Status, age, depth, ownership, and location guide screening. Repeated direct measurement establishes attribution, persistence, baseline, and priority.
First-wave markets
Texas · Pennsylvania · West Virginia · Oklahoma
Large or rapidly growing inventories, usable public records, active plugging programs, and published evidence that emissions are concentrated in a relatively small share of wells.
Concentrated basin opportunities
Utah · Wyoming · Montana
Smaller inventories, but strong basin clustering, useful well-history data, and documented methane measurement campaigns that support focused deployment.
Reconnaissance markets
Alabama · Nevada
Lower-volume inventories and material measurement gaps. Best approached through targeted screening pilots before broader rights acquisition or field mobilization.
Seven corridors define the preliminary deployment sequence.
- Texas Permian conventional and idle cohort
- Pennsylvania northwest legacy corridor
- West Virginia north-central and western corridor
- Oklahoma Cherokee Platform and northeast counties
- Utah Uinta Basin
- Wyoming Powder River coalbed-methane cohort
- Montana Kevin-Sunburst Dome
Nine state profiles. Available two ways.
Open a compact state summary here, or download the full annex for inventory signal, primary geography, evidence read, lead regulator, and targeting implication.
Download the state landscape annex ↓
11,123 orphan wells at year-end 2025; more than 120,000 inactive wells.
Permian counties, including Pecos and Reeves; legacy fields statewide.
The widest mix of old vertical wells, marginal producers, and modern horizontals. Heavy-tail methane evidence is strong, but West Texas pressure, water, and subsurface migration risks require a separate engineering screen.
Railroad Commission of Texas; TCEQ for the marginal-well methane program.
Largest scale opportunity—and the most complex rights, water, and well-integrity environment.
19,160 documented orphan wells in the USGS baseline; the broader legacy inventory is estimated in the hundreds of thousands.
Northwest and western counties, led by Venango, McKean, Warren, and Forest.
The strongest abandoned-well methane and co-pollutant evidence base. The target cohort is overwhelmingly old, shallow, conventional vertical wells.
Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.
Dense legacy corridors, mature public data, and a strong case for measurement-led prioritization.
3,594 wells in the USGS baseline; later public inventories exceed 5,600.
Ritchie, Pleasants, Gilmer, Roane, Calhoun, Doddridge, and adjacent counties.
Direct measurements show substantial well-to-well variability. The legacy inventory is predominantly old Appalachian vertical wells, with modern horizontals separately identifiable.
West Virginia DEP Office of Oil and Gas.
A compact Appalachian corridor with accessible production files and a strong state/federal plugging pipeline.
20,406 known abandoned wells requiring plugging or adoption across 76 counties.
Cherokee Platform and northeast/east counties, including Okmulgee, Washington, Nowata, Creek, and Tulsa.
Many wells predate reliable records. A 179-well field campaign found most wells did not leak detectably, while shallower and unplugged wells were more likely to emit—supporting triage, not blanket assumptions.
Oklahoma Corporation Commission; Osage County follows Tribal and federal jurisdiction.
Large, locatable inventory with a regulator-defined risk ladder and a clear role for aerial, LiDAR, and direct screening.
72 documented orphan wells in the 2021 USGS baseline; the state maintains a current live list.
Uinta Basin, Vernal area, and southeastern Utah.
Legacy wells generally predate 1955. State records preserve depth and drilled date; regional methane studies support basin-scale screening rather than statewide averages.
Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining.
A concentrated basin opportunity with an unusually explicit annual risk-assessment process.
1,323 documented orphan wells in the USGS baseline.
Powder River Basin.
The cohort includes many shallow vertical coalbed-methane wells. A small pilot found generally modest but variable emissions, underscoring the need for basin-specific measurement.
Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.
Strong geographic clustering and public well data, with groundwater and produced-water concerns alongside methane.
221 documented orphan wells in the USGS baseline.
Kevin-Sunburst Dome in Toole County and other eastern fields.
USGS monitoring showed emissions change with wind and daily temperature. Short spot measurements can therefore misclassify persistence and magnitude.
Montana Board of Oil and Gas Conservation.
Excellent public data and a focused research geography; Tribal pathways require government-to-government or Tribe-authorized partnership.
25 known orphan wells in the 2025 state story map; 16 are in Lamar County.
Lamar County, the Black Warrior Basin, and southwest Alabama.
The known set is small and the Black Warrior coalbed-methane inventory is predominantly vertical. No robust state-specific orphan-well methane campaign was identified.
State Oil and Gas Board of Alabama.
A bounded pilot geography where aerial or mobile screening should precede broader rights work.
63 presumed abandoned wells in the 2020 USGS state file.
Small, dispersed inventory; activity around Kingston and Gabbs Valley.
No consolidated current orphan count or state-specific methane campaign was located. Geometry must be reconstructed from individual permit and completion records.
Nevada Division of Minerals.
A reconnaissance market, not a first-wave scale market.
One target file carries three things.
Well evidence
Age, geometry, casing, production, plugging history, pressure, and measured methane.
Rights and jurisdiction
Operator, surface and mineral rights, enforcement status, Tribal or federal authority, and environmental attributes.
Community and environment
Homes, schools, water wells, Tribal lands, complaints, co-pollutants, terrain, and access.
Methane is principally a climate, explosion, and confined-space hazard. The stronger chronic-health case concerns co-emitted benzene and other volatile organic compounds, hydrogen sulfide, ozone formation, brines, and cumulative exposure near legacy infrastructure.
The atmosphere responds to what stops.
Find the source. Close the pathway.
Preserve the evidence. Return the land.