What it costs to plug a well in Nebraska
Reported costs of publicly funded plugging in Nebraska, 2022 to 2025: a median of $38,916 per well.
AHigh confidence
The middle of reported costs is $38,916. Most wells cost between $17,628 and $59,145 (the 10th to 90th percentile). The median is typically within 24% of what individual wells cost. It rests on 403 wells.
How Nebraska compares
Nebraska's median is below the middle of published states ($43,622) and is number 5 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 $27,091 in 2023 and $43,244 in 2024, a change of +60%. 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.
The wells behind the figure are mostly gas wells.
The documented backlog
Nebraska lists about 466 documented orphan wells. At the published range that would cost roughly $8.2 million to $27.6 million to plug, middle estimate $18.1 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 Nebraska.
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 Nebraska costs.