Oil Producers Return to Old Wells

The high price of oil has led producers in Tennessee to seek out once-abandoned wells and get them pumping again.

Bill Goodwin owns Ky-Tenn [kay-ten] Oil based in Brentwood. He’s spending most of his time these days searching for lost wells in Morgan County that he bought 30 years ago, only knowing their coordinates. Many were considered dry; dry, that is, if oil remained at a couple of bucks a barrel.

“You had to get about 20 barrels a day and it was tough to do. You could do it, but it was tough to do. Well today, five barrels a day even at the accelerated cost, of course our costs have gone up to, at today’s prices, it’s a good economic situation.”

At well-above 100-dollars per barrel, Goodwin says it can be worth the cost to re-stimulate a well even if it produces just one barrel a day.

Tennessee’s oil and gas wells are concentrated on the northern Cumberland Plateau. State geologists report that permitting activity has increased over the past three years, and much of that is due to producers pulling permits for old wells. Goodwin says oil prices haven’t pushed investors to do much new drilling. He thinks the re-working of abandoned wells, though, may turn around production numbers this year, which have been at near-record lows – roughly 285-thousand barrels last year.