Southern California officials are taking a group of oil companies to court in an effort to force the firms to pay for the cost of retiring unproductive wells.
What happened: Los Angeles County Counsel Dawyn Harrison filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Wednesday against four fossil fuel firms that have operated wells in the Inglewood Oil Field: Sentinel Peak Resources California LLC, Freeport-McMoRan Oil & Gas LLC, Plains Resources Inc. and Chevron U.S.A. Inc.
“To their massive enrichment, these companies have intentionally ignored, failed to decommission, and then transferred exhausted oil and gas wells in the [Inglewood Oil Field] to successor operators,” Harrison wrote in the complaint.
Chevron spokesperson Allison Cook declined to comment. The other defendants did not immediately respond to requests for comment.