Alberta has a fund for this exact purpose: to remediate & reclaim wells that may be 50+ years old where the owner no longer exists. Companies fund it on the front-end.
Even after recognizing the potential problem of abandonned wells the fund is massively underfunded; I can't imagine what land owners must be going through that don't have any protection. One difference: in our jurisidiction they usually only own the land rights (vs. subsurface mineral) so the leases paid are for access and generally pretty small. this article doesn't get into the weeds but I wonder if the US owners have mineral rights (based on the mention of royalty share) and thus the responsibility for Rec & Rem is more complicated.
Even after recognizing the potential problem of abandonned wells the fund is massively underfunded; I can't imagine what land owners must be going through that don't have any protection. One difference: in our jurisidiction they usually only own the land rights (vs. subsurface mineral) so the leases paid are for access and generally pretty small. this article doesn't get into the weeds but I wonder if the US owners have mineral rights (based on the mention of royalty share) and thus the responsibility for Rec & Rem is more complicated.