Stripper Wells Produce 6% Of Oil, 50% Of Leaked Methane, So Trump Cuts Methane Restrictions To Benefit One Billionaire

[hatrack]

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As the founder and owner of Hilcorp, a privately held company known for buying up old, low-producing “stripper wells,” (Ed. - Jeffrey) Hildebrand needs Trump’s favor. Long one of the oil industry’s top polluters, Hilcorp releases unusually large quantities of methane, a greenhouse gas that can trap 80 times more heat than carbon dioxide. Hildebrand had never been a leading political contributor. But in 2024, the Biden administration issued aggressive restrictions on methane pollution — rules that would impose steep costs on Hilcorp — and the once-obscure tycoon became one of Trump’s biggest oil industry supporters, giving millions to his campaign.

Trump has since named a former Hilcorp lobbyist to a top post at the Environmental Protection Agency, putting him in charge of an effort to unravel the methane rules with help from trade groups backed by Hildebrand, a ProPublica investigation has found. That will bring a sweeping reprieve for the nation’s 700,000 stripper wells, boosting Hildebrand’s profits while saddling society as a whole with the climate fallout.Stripper wells collectively contribute just 6% of the nation’s oil and natural gas.

But in recent studies, scientists have identified them as the source of roughly half the sector’s methane emissions — in part because they tend to be thinly monitored, run-down and thus prone to leaking. As a result, these barely productive wells play an outsize role in climate change, disproportionately amplifying heat waves, droughts and wildfires. In a world where global warming fixes can seem impossibly daunting, stripper wells are the rare low-hanging fruit, said Andrew Logan of Ceres, a climate advocacy group.“If you could lose 6% of production and cut emissions in half, who wouldn’t make that trade?” Logan said. “It’s a question of who benefits and who doesn’t, and who has the power.”

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As Hildebrand expanded into other states, loading up on debt to make ever larger acquisitions, there’s evidence he followed this model. According to records obtained by ProPublica from state and federal environmental regulators, his company has racked up dozens of violations over the past decade. To cite one notable example, after a Hilcorp natural gas pipeline ruptured in Alaska’s Cook Inlet in December 2016, it spewed methane for nearly four months until it was finally repaired. Activists across the country call the company “Spillcorp.” The penalties, though, have largely amounted to a slap on the wrist, rarely exceeding $500,000 — and often coming in far lower. “I would frankly put that in the category of just operating costs,” said Matt Bernstein, an analyst at the research firm Rystad Energy.

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https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-epa-methane-jeffery-hildebrand-hilcorp-oil-regulations

[biophile]

1. Wonder how much that billionaire had to pay Drumpf for that favor?

[hatrack]

2. In the great scheme of things, not very much . . . .