What it costs to plug a well in Indiana
Reported costs of publicly funded plugging in Indiana, 2023 to 2025: a median of $48,768 per well.
BModerate confidence
The middle of reported costs is $48,768. Most wells cost between $30,874 and $88,560 (the 10th to 90th percentile). The median is typically within 28% of what individual wells cost. It rests on 414 wells.
How Indiana compares
Indiana's median is above the middle of published states ($43,622) and is number 7 from the bottom of the 10 states with a published figure. State differences reflect well depth, terrain, the age of the wells and how each program buys the work, so a higher number does not by itself mean a less efficient program.
Looking only at years with enough data to publish, the median reported cost was $53,454 in 2023 and $44,948 in 2024, a change of -16%. Part of any change is a different mix of wells from year to year, so use the Plugging Cost Index for like-for-like movement.
Funding
Indiana's orphan well program has received at least $14.1 million in federal infrastructure-law grants that we could match in federal award records. Program tracker for Indiana.
The documented backlog
Indiana lists about 1,238 documented orphan wells. At the published range that would cost roughly $38.2 million to $109.6 million to plug, middle estimate $60.4 million. It is an estimate built from the figures above, not a program budget.
Bonds
Compare the cost with what operators must post: bond amounts for Indiana.
Using the figure
These are costs of orphan wells plugged with public money, mostly shallow vertical wells. A deep, horizontal or offshore well, or a well with a collapsed casing, can cost far more. For a specific well, use the estimator; for the full state page, charts and sources see Indiana costs.