Crews from private oil and gas companies helped mop about 300 barrels of drilling mud that started bubbling from a long-abandoned well on private property northeast of Berthoud on Sunday.
A person who lives on the property in the 2500 block of East Colorado 60 called the fire department to report oil leaking from the well. By Monday, state officials had confirmed the muck was mostly drilling mud, which is a material used in the drilling process.
Berthoud fire crews and oil drilling companies that were working nearby stopped the spill before it could spread from the long driveway onto the highway. Extraction Oil & Gas Inc. and SRC Energy, both oil and gas companies out of Denver, removed the drilling mud with vacuum trucks and remained on site to remove any additional fluids that may spill.
Neither of the companies is responsible for the well.
“We’re glad we had some guys in the area and were able to help out,” said Brian Cain, spokesman for Extraction, referring all inquiries on the incident to the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.
The well, believed to have been drilled in the 1920s or 1930s, was capped and abandoned in 1984. Because there is no current operator for the “orphaned” well, the state oil and gas commission will be responsible for again plugging the well, noted Todd Hartman, spokesman for the Colorado Department of Natural Resources.
It is one of the 16,118 plugged and abandoned wells in Colorado.
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