Colorado Regulators Waived $1.3 Billion in Oil Cleanup Bonds for Chevron, Oxy and Civitas
Updated
Updated · The Guardian · Jun 2
Colorado Regulators Waived $1.3 Billion in Oil Cleanup Bonds for Chevron, Oxy and Civitas
2 articles · Updated · The Guardian · Jun 2
Summary
$1.3 billion in potential financial guarantees was effectively erased after Colorado regulators excluded 14,611 plugged-but-unreclaimed wells from bonding calculations for Chevron, Oxy and Civitas, an investigation found.
That left the three producers with just $146 million posted for more than 11,700 bonded wells while they still carry over 6,200 open remediation projects and thousands of polluted sites awaiting cleanup.
State rules adopted after the 2019 SB-181 overhaul said "all wells" should remain covered until reclamation is complete, but regulators shifted remediation bonding into annual reviews that still have not been finished for any operator.
The cleanup backlog is compounded by falsified environmental paperwork at hundreds of sites and by remediation rates that lag plugging, meaning many locations near homes, schools and water supplies could remain contaminated for decades.
The findings undercut Colorado's image as a national model for oil-well financial assurance and add to wider U.S. concerns over who will pay to decommission more than 2 million aging wells.
Why did Colorado's watchdog ignore its own rules, letting oil giants leave thousands of toxic sites for others to clean?
With regulators waiving $1B in cleanup fees, are Colorado taxpayers being set up for an $8B bill?
$1.3 Billion at Stake: How Colorado’s Oil Giants Dodged Cleanup and Left Taxpayers Exposed
Overview
A major investigation by DeSmog and The Guardian has revealed that, despite significant reforms in 2019 giving Colorado’s Energy and Carbon Management Commission (ECMC) new powers, the commission has allowed the state’s largest oil companies—Chevron, Occidental Petroleum, and Civitas Resources—to avoid their cleanup responsibilities. This failure to enforce decommissioning obligations has created hidden public costs, as the burden of cleaning up aging oil and gas sites increasingly falls on taxpayers. The report exposes how regulatory loopholes and lack of accountability have led to an ongoing, invisible toll on the public, highlighting the urgent need for stronger oversight.