SB1146

SB1146 allows specified lease or mineral-interest owners and surface owners to arrange plugging or replugging of an orphaned well through a Railroad Commission-approved well plugger, without taking on operatorship merely by using this procedure. The lease or mineral-interest route requires an operator in good standing who owns an interest in a current oil-and-gas lease or the mineral estate of the tract. A surface owner can use the separate surface-owner route, but not if that owner was the operator who abandoned the well. Final law, new section 89.049(b), (d), (g).

An “orphaned well” is not simply any idle well: the incorporated definition requires a commission-permitted well, no reported production or other commission-regulated activity for the preceding 12 months, and an operator whose approved organization report has lapsed. “Operator in good standing” also has defined conditions: an approved organization report, designation as operator of at least one well, sufficient financial security for additional wells, and no specified unresolved violation order or docketed rule-violation complaint. Final law, section 89.049(a); Prior Natural Resources Code 89.047, subsection (a)(2)–(3).

The plugger must mail notice at least 30 days before plugging to the operator or surface owner, as applicable, using the address in commission records, and perform the work under commission rules. The commission may require employee supervision; the work is not complete until the commission approves it. The commission must adopt implementing rules, including approval procedures. Final law, section 89.049(c), (f), (h).

The eligible contracting operator or surface owner does not assume physical operation and control of the orphaned well and receives the stated protection against plugging responsibility and damages arising from the covered plugging or replugging acts or omissions. Paying or contracting under this section is not an admission of an obligation to plug. The act bars using that evidence against the person in a suit over that obligation and makes introducing it a compulsory ground for mistrial. These protections concern the specified statutory arrangement, not a general license to abandon wells. Separately, the act adds private people who pay the commission under section 89.084 to section 89.045’s protection for damages from good-faith efforts to carry out the chapter. Final law, sections 1–2; Prior Natural Resources Code 89.084; Prior Natural Resources Code 89.045.

Signed May 28, 2025, the act took effect September 1, 2025. Official history; Final law, section 3.