Marc L. Buursink Brian A. Varela 2025 <p>Hydrocarbon wells are not active forever; when they become permanently disused (abandoned), well infrastructure must be remediated or repurposed. Knowing which wells are abandoned is the initial and often complicated step in taking responsibility for well infrastructure. Each State creates laws and regulates hydrocarbon operations, which includes well abandonment. The existence of multiple regulating authorities means definitions of abandonment are mostly found in legal documents are broadly defined or other terms are used. This report presents a technical approach to defining hydrocarbon well abandonment using well production data and identifies abandoned hydrocarbon wells using the new definition.</p> application/pdf 10.3133/sir20255030 en U.S. Geological Survey Methodology for defining and compiling abandoned and active hydrocarbon well inventories reports