Collaborative Approach to Reducing Emissions (CARE) for Marginal Conventional Wells (MCWs)

Project Overview
The CARE project will be led by Colorado State University (PI: Daniel Zimmerle) in cooperation with universities distributed widely across the country (UT, TAMU, UWV, NMT, and UWV), an incubator (Innosphere, Fort Collins), a national lab (LANL) and one community development organization (Ohio River Valley Institute).
CARE will develop and implement a solution ecosystem that improves operational efficiency, safety, and environmental footprint of marginal conventional wells (MCWs) across the USA. Solutions will be tailored to the specific characteristics of MCWs: Many operational solutions available to new, larger, production operations are ill-suited to older, smaller, MCW operations.
While the funding allocated to CARE will directly impact 200-250 operators, 4000-5000 well pads, and up to 10,000 wells, this represents a small fraction of the MCWs in the USA. A fundamental shift in infrastructure will be needed to address the 250,000+ MCWs across the USA.
To address this need, CARE will take a 2-pronged approach: Deploy solutions at MCWs and develop a solution ecosystem that will continue to provide cost-effective operational improvements to MCW operators long after the completion of the program.
Deployment: The project will create a funding program where MCW operators enroll their MCW sites for mitigation funding. Mitigation targets will be prioritized using on-site assessments and a regionally tuned marginal abatement cost curve (MACC) analysis.
Pre- and post-implementation assessments, follow-up assessments, and root cause analysis will quantify and track improvements. Process automation will ease the burden on enrolled operators and solutions.
Incubation: The team will identify solutions and services for operators to deploy on their sites. Enrolled solution may opt into an incubation and integration process to tune solutions for the specific needs of MCW sites. A menu of tested solutions will be provided to enrolled operators to use at their sites, reducing the cost of reaching MCW operators and lower risks for those operators.
Often a substantial fraction of the deployment cost is deploying trained technicians to a facility with a well-developed, readily implemented, solution. CARE will develop training programs to build capacity local to MCW areas using in-person and online programs. Training programs will providing needed local, skilled and a skilled industrial workforce long term.
Persistence: The combination of active deployment and incubated solutions will be designed to establish a solution ecosystem that persists after the project ends. For example, annual national and regional showcase events will establish a forum for the exchange of best practices
Opportunities to Participate:
Complete the Interest Form linked below to express interest and to join the project email list.
Program Stakeholders:
MCW operators: MCW operators may enroll in the program and receive federal funds to implement solutions at their facilities. Further guidance on timing, processes, and requirements will be available in Q3 2025.
Solution developers: Developers of solutions for MCWs, including regional or national service organizations, may enroll in the solution development, qualification, and incubation program. Further guidance on timing, processes, and requirements will be available in Q3 2025.
State and local government and other community stakeholders: CARE will work with and through local organizations to reach MCW operators and solution developers, and to prioritize areas that are good candidates for programs. The study team is currently building a list of state and local stakeholders for detailed discussions starting Q3 2025.
Educators: CARE will develop training programs suitable for a range of training programs, including community colleges, workshops, union training centers, etc. The study team is currently building a list of interested educational institutions, with scoping discussions starting in Q3 2025 for first material deployment no earlier than Q1 2026.
Hiring: CSU and other study team members will be progressively staffing throughout 2025 to execute this complex project. Refer to organization website about job opportunities or contact the study team co-PIs directly.
Timeline:
Interested in participating? We’re building a list of interested parties now, with the project operational by end of Q2/ beginning of Q3 2025. A preliminary trial run of processes is planned for Q3-4, 2025, with full operation 2026 through mid-2028 (44 months total).
Participation Form
- Questions?
- Contact [email protected] with questions or to receive additional information
Interested in Participating? Complete this Participation Interest Form:
Funding Provided by:
DOE MERP Award DE-FOA-0003256

Well Site Data (Data Blinded Operator Survey) from Quantification of Methane Emissions From Marginal Oil & Gas Wells Study. Richard Bowers, Ann Smith. 2020.