Oil companies make record profits, yet fail to clean up their mess

The New York Times reports that in the Gulf of Mexico alone there are up to 14,000 old, unplugged oil wells. These wells are at risk of leaking, meaning oil and other pollutants spill into the ocean and could wash up on shore. In addition, unplugged wells can leak significant amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

The findings were part of a study published in Nature Energy - the authors also noted that all the wells could be plugged at a cost of around US$30 billion. Oil and gas companies are supposed to be responsible for plugging wells once they are no longer in use, but operators frequently go bankrupt and wells are left unplugged. However the study also noted that 90% of the wells were at some point owned by one of the major oil companies - BP, Shell, Exxon, Chevron. These are the same companies that made almost US$200 billion in profit in 2022 alone.

It begs the question, why are these companies allowed to generate such massive profits yet avoid their responsibility to protect the environment?