What it costs to plug a well in Wyoming
Reported costs of publicly funded plugging in Wyoming, 2023 to 2025: a median of $5,590 per well.
AHigh confidence
The middle of reported costs is $5,590. Most wells cost between $5,051 and $15,448 (the 10th to 90th percentile). The median is typically within 16% of what individual wells cost. It rests on 1,124 wells.
How Wyoming compares
Wyoming's median is below the middle of published states ($43,622) and is the lowest 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 $5,520 in 2023 and $5,915 in 2024, a change of +7%. 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, and 61% of the records are contract averages rather than a cost for one well.
The documented backlog
Wyoming lists about 790 documented orphan wells. At the published range that would cost roughly $4.0 million to $12.2 million to plug, middle estimate $4.4 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 Wyoming.
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 Wyoming costs.