Earth Day is an annual event on April 22 to demonstrate support for environmental protection. First held on April 22, 1970, it now includes a wide range of events coordinated globally by EarthDay.org including 1 billion people in more than 193 countries.
Every year The Crude Life kicks off an Content Theme starting in 2012 when the theme was - This isn’t an oil play, it’s a technology play.
Last year the official theme for 2022 was Invest In Our Planet. This year, we are checking back on those who have been investing in the planet’s health for at least three years.
On this Earth Day 2023, The Crude Life and Curtis Shuck, Chairman of the Board, Well Done Foundation talk about a variety of investments, actions and forward thoughts regarding a major announcement of a 10-year partnership with Newlight Technologies as well as their well-plugging awareness effort.
“Today on this Earth Day, I am down in Oil City, Louisiana finishing up the Tito’s Trifecta, but we have other orphan wells being plugged on Earth Day across the United States,” Shuck said. “We’re marking the occasion with four active plugging projects running simultaneously across four states – Ohio, Pennsylvania, Louisiana and Montana.”
Shuck said the major partnership with Newlight Technologies will ensure the plugging of hundred of more wells across the United States for the next decade.
Newlight is a biotechnology company producing advanced sustainable materials. Over 10 years of research and development, Newlight developed a biotechnological process to harness microorganisms found in the ocean to convert greenhouse gas into a meltable energy material found in all living things: a naturally-occurring, biocompatible material that can be used to make fibers and solid parts, and help reduce the flow of carbon and synthetic plastic into the environment.
Following commercialization in 2013, AirCarbon was named “Biomaterial of the Year” by the Nova Institute in 2013, “one of the 100 most technologically significant innovations of the year” by R&D Magazine in 2013, and “Innovation of the Year” by Popular Science in 2014, and received the prestigious EPA Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge award in 2016. Today, Newlight is focused on growth through both internal and licensed production to help fulfill the company’s mission: to protect and improve life by accelerating the world’s transition to sustainable, regenerative materials.
This partnership continues the momentum of corporate sponsors helping plug orphan wells across America. Texas-based distillery Tito’s Handmade Vodka and the Felty Family Challenge recently funded the non-profit’s first well-plugging project of 2022. The well, known as Fenner #2, was installed near Caddo Lake on the Louisiana/Texas border in 1985, and abandoned in 2017.
Shuck was in Louisiana during the Earth Day interview with Jason Spiess completing “Tito’s Trifecta” of orphan well plugging.
Before Shuck made his way to the bayou, he and the crew with the Well Done Foundation just completed a plugging in Ohio at the Franciscan Village where residents complained for years about smelling gas in the courtyard of the subsidized senior-living complex in Kamm’s Corners for 11 years.
Although the smell was not constant, at times the leaking gas odor would be so strong that residents enjoying the flowers, benches and statue of St. Francis would have to get up and leave.
According to Shuck, several months ago a contractor discovered the well casing in the courtyard during construction on an atrium. Working with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Cleveland Fire Department, management of Franciscan Village and Moore Well Services the collective group of people and organizations banded together to plug the orphan well.
There may have been more than an orphan well discovered too. Shuck explains how state records show the well had been drilled more than a century ago to extract natural gas, but was plugged in the 1950s with a substance called fire clay.
“This was the industry standard at the time,” Shuck said. “However what they found was that what was commonly used by the industry at the time, had cracked and shrunk over time.”
Shuck said this discovery will now be reverse data engineered to see if there are other wells plugged with fireclay. This may impact the number of orphan wells in the nation as well as a number of other variables in the Big Data of oil and gas reclamation.
According to the Well Done Foundation website, the Environmental Protection Agency estimates there are 2.5 million unplugged abandoned wells in the United States. That includes 31 states, emitting 7.2 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent a year. They say that is equal to 798 million gallons of gasoline used, 1.54 million passenger vehicles for a year, or 7.85 billion pounds of coal burned.
The Biden administration recently authorized $4.7 billion nationwide for the plugging of orphan wells. An orphan well has been abandoned and have no registered owner. Abandoned Well typically refers to an unproductive well with a known owner/operator, however in either case, the wells remain uncapped.
The Well Done Foundations, founded in 2019, builds partnerships between regulators, owners and adoptive parties to plug “orphan” oil & gas wells. The non-profit is based in Montana but is also building capacity in Pennsylvania, Louisiana and several other states. For more information, or to contribute or sponsor a well plugging project, visit welldonefoundation.org.
Here are some recent Well Done Foundation projects.
Our Lady of Angels Church #1: Cuyahoga County, OH in the Cleveland Township
Martha Smith #1: Erie County, PA in the Waterford Township
Gish A #35: Caddo Parish, LA in the Township of Mooringsport
Lorenzen #15: Toole County, MT in the Township of Oilmont
Below is the Artificial Intelligence Transcript, there may be some errors in spelling and names.
Voice Artist
Time now for an update from the crude life with Jason Space, the most trusted voice in energy and now back to the Crude Life Media Network.
Curtis Shuck
Hi, this is with the well done foundation.
Jason Spiess
Thank you for joining us on our Earth Day phone line here today and we couldn't think of a better guest to bring in to talk on Earth Day than Mr Curtis Shuck himself. Not only does he understand the supply chain of what it needs to be involved with making Earth Day happen, but also right now he's plugging wells all over the US and where in the world of Carmen San Diego, oil shale play USA are you today?
Curtis Shuck
But you know, uh I'm sitting in front of our uh team facility here in oil city, Louisiana um up in Cattle Parish, which is a fun fact. The birthplace of offshore drilling in the United States of America. How about that? I
Jason Spiess
did not know that. What was the name of that again?
Curtis Shuck
Uh The name of the town that I'm in is uh oil city, but it's in Caddo, C AD D O parish and Caddo Pine Lake uh is famous for uh being the host of the first offshore drilling in the United States just uh, in the very early 19 hundreds.
Jason Spiess
So the name of the town is Oil City.
Curtis Shuck
Oil City, man. Gotta love it. Oh, here I thought
Jason Spiess
you were just, you know, going off my shill play usa snarky remark. And no, that's the actual name of the town. Oh, that's, yeah.
Curtis Shuck
No, it's a real deal. I'll send you a picture, I'll send you a picture of oil city, you know, the well done mobile uh front of the oil city side. But no, it's uh a lot of, you know, robust history here and uh this portion of Northwest Louisiana and we're working diligently on uh numbers of projects right now here and excited to be, you know, excited to be in the, in the boot in the great state of Louisiana
Jason Spiess
before we get to your Ohio work, which was just outstanding just because of the just visuals and uh you know that close to buildings and just becomes a real eye opener. We'll get to that in just a moment uh with the abandoned wells, but I wanted to stay down in Louisiana for just a second here on Earth Day. Uh In one of our past interviews, I can't remember if it was the last one or two interviews ago.
Uh You dropped the news that uh Tito's uh the fine spirits of vodka, handmade vodka. Tito's uh became a partner with you in, in plugging some wells and there was a number of them. Is that what you're doing down there right now or did you complete that series with them?
Curtis Shuck
Uh, we're, uh, we're just finishing up the Tito's trifecta, uh, of three wells actually right now. And so to your point where we've got two on tap, we'll be, uh, plugging one tomorrow and then, uh, probably another one, uh, either on Saturday or on Monday, but that'll finish up the Tito's work here in uh Louisiana and part of the
Five Buys project. But we've got, you know, we've got a bunch more that are coming up and we'll talk a little bit about that here in just a second with some more exciting news,
Jason Spiess
uh, quick before we get to that exciting news. Uh, is Jason Priestley still doing some spokesman work for, for you guys?
Curtis Shuck
Yeah, he's been, you know, he's obviously a little committed to his own career. Uh, too bad. We can't keep him 100% busy. But, uh, yeah. No, he's still on the team. Absolutely. And, uh working out of, uh, out of Nashville and doing this thing. So, but
Jason Spiess
yeah, ok. I just want to make, I just wanted to check on that. I'm making my notes here. So, uh, did you want to get some big news or do you, are we going up to Ohio? Is that where we're going next? Because I got, I gotta tell you I mean, when I, when I, first time I got to Ohio, when I was back in my magazine Day, uh, coming out of Michigan and through those
rolling hills in Ohio there. I, I, you know, the first thing that jumped out to me was, it seemed like every single, um, lawn had a statue of Mother Teresa and Woody Hayes. There
Curtis Shuck
you go. There you go. It's pretty funny. Um, yes. And certainly we're, we're working in Ohio up in Cleveland, you know, right in the, the epicenter if you would of development from, you know, the turn of the century. Um, but, you know, we're working at the, our Lady of Angels church actually at a old Franciscan monastery uh on this particular abandoned, well, that we're doing
right now. And, uh you know, there's a, there's a high concentration as you can imagine of, of uh activity in that area. And, yeah, so exciting to be a part of this project. So
Jason Spiess
let's talk about that a little bit. So, you know, I guess I didn't realize that it was a, a monastery. I, I, I thought it was a uh senior home but I guess if this abandoned this orphan, well, is right in the middle of uh four different, you know, brick buildings or structures.
If I, I can't know if they're all brick, but I know they're structures. Um, I guess it, you know, I got four different types of things. So talk to me a little bit about this project you mentioned. It was called Lady of the Church. Old lady of the Church. Yeah,
Curtis Shuck
the, the name of the church is Our Lady of Angels. Oh,
Jason Spiess
boy, I was way on my
Curtis Shuck
careful look out for that lightning bolt. But uh anyway, I had,
Jason Spiess
I had visions of Sister Mary slap in my hand when I was a child with a ruler.
Curtis Shuck
So, yeah. So, yeah. no, this is the our Lady of Angels uh church. There was uh Franciscan monastery that uh was there back in the day and again, turn of the century stuff. Um the monastery had since relocated. And so they took that monastery building as the first of three buildings and to host the Franciscan village uh project, which is another nonprofit uh low income uh independent uh senior living facility. And uh so, you know, we've kind of got introduced to them through, you
know, our friends at the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and through our, our contracting partners there in, in uh Ohio. And um what a great fit. It's been an opportunity to, you know, to partner together to get this well, plugged, obviously emitting an extensive amount of gas and right in the middle of their development plans for a new building. ...
Jason Spiess
So walk us through how this happened then. So uh how was it discovered? And how did you guys get involved? You mentioned through the uh Ohio Natural Resources uh department was, was this something that has been on the radar? Was this kind of a new thing? Did it get discovered during the construction?
Curtis Shuck
So, the interestingly enough, the, the, well, um, it, after, you know, extensive review of those records that are available and remember the, you know, a lot of these legacy wells drilled, you know, uh the dawn of time don't possess a lot of great records and this is certainly one of those, but the records that we have found indicate the well was drilled in uh 19 oh eight.
Uh it was actually produced up until about 1955 and then the well was plugged according to the records. And when the well was plugged, the well was plugged using what's called fire clay. And fire clay is just kind of a fancy type of night clay apparently. And anyhow, after time, uh you know, the, the clay had shrunk and dehydrated and allowed the gas to escape out of the formation.
Um But after the well was plugged and, you know, and uh to the extent that, you know, they felt that it was good to go. Um they ended up, you know, building buildings around it, landscaping around it. Uh There was actually literally a, a statue of Saint Francis uh that was in the landscape area that was over the top of uh this particular uh old L and, and the residents for years had had indicated that they could smell gas.
And so, you know, they would tell the management, the management would call the gas company because nobody knew there was a, well, there, the gas company would show up sniff around, couldn't find anything, you know. So this happened for, you know, gosh, I don't know, 10 years. And, um, finally, the Franciscan Village too is uh in the middle of a renovation project and uh through their excavation efforts uncovered, uh this well head and the well head was uh open, you know, uh to the
open to the surface. And so, um, you know, that's where certainly the gas had been coming from. So, at that point, you know, they reached out immediately to the fire department to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources who has oil and gas, um, uh, regulatory responsibility in the state. And, uh, and then they, uh touched base with one of their preferred contractors who's our partner, uh in uh, north eastern Ohio. And they dispatched to the location and then called us and said,
hey, this is a, a, a great well fits right with the, you know, the well done foundation's mission. Uh, what do you think? So, we went out and looked at it and, you know, the rest is history. We've now, you know, adopted the well, uh, and are uh engaged in the plug in abandonment. We studied it for about uh 30 days, actually, about almost 40 days. We've got robust data. In terms of the emissions. And uh what an exciting project
Jason Spiess
boy, my editor in chief hat sees 100 different stories with what you just said, holy smokes. Well, like the one that really stands out, especially for the oil and gas industry and what you're doing and you know, from a regulation standpoint, uh the fact that this was plugged and then it, you know, because of the methods that were approved at the time, we're finding out now that is that an isolated incident is, are these other wells that were plugged with this fire clay?
Are we gonna have to go back and revisit those, has that been discussed at all or I mean, that's what stood out to me quite a bit in this, in, in what you were talking about. Yeah.
Curtis Shuck
So there's, you know, there's uh absolutely. Um you know, all of the above Jason, I think that it's uh something that's flagged uh as far as, you know, what the durability if you would or the permanence of those methods from back in the day? Remember, it's, you know, in, at that time that was the best available science and that's what was used and accepted as an industry practice, a best practice.
And now, you know, maybe things are a little different. I I think the key is to, you know, to just be aware and be on the lookout and, you know, the takeaway for me really was, hey, look when, you know, somebody thinks they smell gas, you know, it's a good time to really start to lean into it. But for well done, it was a perfect match, you know, perfect project for us.
Uh, seems like we sort of end up with some of these hairy ones, you know. But, you know, that's the whole intent of the, of the nonprofit. I mean, if we can't lean in and, and, you know, really, you know, work hard to make things better. I mean, it's not just about picking the low hanging fruit in this game. It's just about making the difference.
Jason Spiess
By the way, the other part of that story too that stood out was how apparently, you know, smelling gas for 10 years, you know, wasn't the end of the world. So, I mean, you know, as much as we want to plug them, it doesn't necessarily have to be an overnight process as much as we try to make it seem like that.
So, I mean, I'm sure there's 100 of these that you guys wanna plug by tomorrow. Um What is it that you guys are doing? You know, because you can't tackle them all at one time, but at the same time, there is a real sense of urgency to get these things plugged.
Curtis Shuck
Oh, 100%. Yeah, I mean, what we're focused on right now is, you know, measuring and monitoring. Uh and then, you know, prioritization, obviously, we've got to match up uh funding, you know, we, we definitely have more wells and money. Uh so matching up uh you know, the high priorities and, and again, that can be based on what the emission is, it can be based on the location like the Our Lady of Angels.
Well, um or you know, its proximity to, you know, critical habitat like up here and, you know, the five bias project or down here in the P five bios project in Louisiana. Um But, you know, what's exciting is that, you know, as E S G is becoming uh more of an accepted uh business, you know, norm and, and responsibility, you know, people are taking uh a much deeper focus in this world and which is exciting, you know, again, we use the example earlier of Tito's, we've got uh some new
partners we're working with in Scottsdale, Arizona. Uh We've got, you know, a big announcement uh coming out of California and yeah, things are, things are starting to happen and so it's really then, you know, matching the priority projects to the dollars and, you know, these to your point, they don't happen overnight. It takes us, you know, from start to finish.
Jason and I bet, you know, on a fast track. Uh it's six months from the time we first learned of the, well, going through all of the legal uh programs of tid and, and transferring and bonding and all that fun stuff. Uh to measuring and monitoring to then scheduling. Uh the actual work is, you know, again, in the perfect world on a fast track. It's six months.
Jason Spiess
So I was gonna ask you about, you know, you mentioned E S G. So, you know, being Earth Day, we should definitely mention E S G, Earth Day E S G I guess I'm trying to figure out an E acronym, but we'll leave that alone. You know, one of the things that's always impressed me about you, Mr Curtis Chuck, chairman of the board for well done foundation is you almost carry yourself like a politician and that you, you, you can articulate yourself in a very um oh not, not too polarizing of a way, but
then every now and then you'll throw something in that says, ok, this guy does thing for himself and that's a, that's a rare quality to have by the way. And I've, I've always appreciated that about you. And you've also had foresight, uh you know, whether it be through your uh supply chain with the commodities or whether it be with the oil and gas work and the energy work you've done.
But primarily it was this, this orphan. Well, uh foresight, you had to where when you started, you wanted to be, you know, a, a, not a for profit but a not for profit if you will try to go away from the nonprofit route, but then you kind of had to adjust your business model for the marketplace. Well, now we're starting to see the marketplace change a little bit again.
Um, how, how are you doing with your, with your adjustment now that everybody and their mother wants to plug orphan wells because it's the new sexy thing. And you're a legitimate, you know, you're, you're a legitimate person who saw the need years ago, went out and did something about it. From my knowledge, you haven't spent any tax money yet. Is that right?
Curtis Shuck
No, that's 100% correct. And I don't see a world in which we will. No kidding. Come on. Use tax dollars for plugging wells. You know, we may, we may use taxpayer dollars for, you know, identifying or measuring and monitoring, but not for the, not for the, um you know, the actual plugging work itself. Um And, and Jason, I, I gotta tell you, you know, for me, this orphan, well, journey has been one of kind of that, you know, perfect intersection of passion and purpose uh at just at the
right time. And, you know, when I, when I first, you know, happened across an orphan, well, in north central Montana up in the K and sunburst there, you know, again, I just, I couldn't believe what I was seeing that that was, you know, in any universe acceptable for anybody in our industry to feel like that. That was what they wanted somebody to see as an impression and, you know, it's just has turned into and, you know, it depends on the day whether it's a calling or a curse.
But, um, you know, for me, it's, it's really important now that, uh, that I'm able to, you know, hopefully inspire others to take part in, in this because it's truly a team sport. But to, you know, to provide some, I don't know, you know, some, some leadership or some thought direction if you would in this space so that, you know, we can get out there and, and
make a dent because what's awesome about it is that, is that it just undeniably works, right? It's not, it's not hard science. Um And it's super exciting and very rewarding. ...
Jason Spiess
What are you telling people on Earth Day today when it comes to, you know, this environmental and social and the governance or whether it be the orphan wells or, you know, you, you can come at it from a lot of different ways. But, you know, well, you know what you're doing, I guess is this is kind of your Super Bowl Day, isn't it?
Curtis Shuck
And it's exciting. Absolutely. And you know, so for us, you know, this is our Third Earth Day uh for the well done foundation of plugging wells. And so somebody had the bright idea that we should go big on our Third Earth Day. And so instead of just having one project that we should really have uh four projects and so we literally have four projects that are going on right now.
Um across the country. We've got, you know, again, the Our Lady of Angels project there in Ohio, um that uh is, you know, in the process of preparing to plug. Uh We've got the uh orphan well, up in uh Pennsylvania and Erie County and uh Waterford Township working with another nonprofit up there, the French Creek Valley Conservancy, just an awesome group of folks.
Um, and, and so that well is getting ready to plug, uh, literally, we'll be starting in the next week. We'd hope to start this week, but obviously, our crew is still in Ohio, uh, working on the, our Lady of Angels. Um, we've got the, the team here in, uh, Louisiana. We're working with, uh, Tito's Trifecta where we're gonna be plugging, uh, tomorrow, the Gish number 35 uh Orphan Gas.
Well, and then, uh, right back home in Montana, uh, we're prepping, uh, one of our wells there for Earth Day. So we'll have a crew moving in tomorrow, uh, and we'll begin plugging and I'm hoping, uh, Jason to get back to Montana. I've been on the road for, this is my ninth week straight and, uh, and be able to participate, uh, with the team there because we've got the Shelby, uh, Montana and, and hopefully the Sunburst Montana, uh, third grader is gonna show up again this year to
participate on the ground. So, pretty exciting stuff. Um, and also today or this evening we've got 1/4 grade class, uh in Tokyo, Japan, who, uh, is the, the, one of the Children of, one of our earlier, well sponsors Fufu, um, uh, who sponsored one of our Montana Wells. And, um, so we've got 1/4 grade class that we're gonna be presenting to. So, you know, the, the message I think to everybody, uh, on Earth Day is do something, right?
I mean, seriously just do something. And, and if that's the message that we can deliver to, uh, you know, anybody that will listen is that, you know, every little bit counts, whether it's one well, at a time or, you know, turning off the lights or taking out the garbage, I mean, just do something. And if everybody adopts that, gosh, what a wonderful thing that would be, you know, ...
Jason Spiess
how can people contribute to the cause, whether it be volunteer their time, uh be like a, you know, big corporate sponsors like a, like a Tito or maybe an oil company or something like that. Uh, you know, take the opportunity here on Earth Day to give your, uh, spill, you know, market yourself a little bit.
Curtis Shuck
Sure. Well, we, you know, encourage folks to check us out at, uh, on our website at W W W dot Well done foundation dot org. Um, you know, our contact information, my contact information is right there and I, uh I, I haven't, um, declined a phone call yet. So I'm happy to, to chat with everybody. It may take me a minute or two to get back to you. But, um, you know, that's really where it starts. Uh Jason, whether it's, uh you know, somebody that wants to be volunteer as you said, or wants to,
you know, contribute, uh or sponsor. Well, I mean, kind of all of the above and so we're, we're super excited about that platform and we're, you know, continuing to improve it and, and, you know, bring, you know, more team members on, uh, as we grow that can really focus on that. And, you know, I, I think the result of that is, is kind of what we're announcing today too, which is bringing a new corporate sponsor, uh, onto the team, which we're super excited about. So,
Jason Spiess
did that, by the way, did we announce your new corporate sponsor or are you still waiting to announce that
Curtis Shuck
drum roll, please? I was waiting for the drum roll.
Jason Spiess
Ok. Well, let me get one here. Ok. ...
Curtis Shuck
No. So, uh, yeah, what we've, uh, sorry, uh, what we've got is this is that, uh, we're announcing our partnership with new light technologies out of Huntington Beach, California. Uh Yes. And, uh, so they are the producers of, uh, what's called air carbon. And, you know, that's a, a kind of a natural non uh carbon, uh or carbon negative, uh, regenerative ocean degradable material.
That's being used to replace plastic. And they're, uh, they've got all kinds of really cool programs from, uh, you know, from silverware to, uh, you know, anything where, you know, plastic, uh, could potentially enter into the waste stream and make its way back to the ocean. Um, and whether it's straws or, you know, plates or, like I said, cutlery, uh, they're looking at, you know, all kinds of really exciting uh, programs.
And so we've been working with new Light technologies actually, since November and they plugged a well with us up in Montana. And since that time, we've been working hard to put uh this uh program together, but it's a, a 10 year uh relationship with the New Light Technologies team uh that has, is literally plugging hundreds of wells uh with them over that 10 year period. And so, you know, super exciting to be able to, you know, to start co branding uh with a company like that.
That's just amazing. And so, you know, we kind of uh laugh internally that, you know, we're, it's kind of now, you know, uh the air, uh land and sea, right? So we've got, you know, uh are making an impact or co branding with folks uh across all those spaces. So super exciting. That's
Jason Spiess
incredible. That's fantastic news. 10 year relationship. That's, that, that, that's a commitment. Wow. I mean, so new light technologies out of Huntington Beach, I used to, I lived in Huntington Beach for a year and across. I was on Brookhurst across the street. We're in Newport Beach. So depends on, you know, who I'm talking to. I say where I'm from, but I lived in Huntington Beach. So, uh, yeah, I am familiar with that company. Great company, by the way. Congratulations.
Curtis Shuck
Yeah. No, we're, uh, we are super excited about that and, uh, and yeah, no, it's, you know, it's, it creates a great platform uh to do a bunch of really good work. The, the brand is so powerful. We're, you know, we're certainly fortunate to be connected with them and, you know, just the, you know, what the benefit that working together is going to deliver over that 10 year period is huge. So.
Jason Spiess
Well, that's a, that's neat. Ok. This company, you mentioned it basically is, is, is replacing plastics with other kinds of um biodegradable matter, I guess or, or whatever the, I don't know, I don't know what the right word would be, I guess, substance, I guess. Uh you know, we're doing something similar with the crude life, to piggy, to piggy.
Back off your amazing uh announcement because we're going along the same routes where we partnered with the Industrial Forest where we're, we're helping them bring um plastic straw. I'm sorry, a sustainable straws. So, straws that are made out of, you know, uh corn and straws that are made out of uh you know, tea leaves and, and carrots and different things. As long as the story is being told how they're being made.
So that way the education process is there about, hey, we all energy has a purpose. Let's figure out its best, use the best way to use it and how it can coexist together. That's, that's really what I'm seeing, the future going along the lines of and that's what this reminds me of. This reminds me of how everything we've been talking about for the past decade is now coming to fruition,
Curtis Shuck
you bet. No. And how exciting to, you know, to be able to, you know, in this crazy day and age to be able to, you know, partner together and, and team up, you know, we call it a collaboration, uh certainly, and, you know, being able to leverage, uh you know, both of our strengths for a really, really important project. And so, you know, we're excited about, you know, that relationship and, and, you know, where that leads and how we can work together and it's really a
national effort, you know, they're a national brand and, you know, we're kind of becoming that also as we're working, you know, across the US. So it's gonna be a great fit.
Jason Spiess
So I gotta ask you then as a 10 year deal, um obviously, and I'm looking at the clock and I, and I know we're short on time and I appreciate the time you've given us. But uh last time we talked, you rattle off some numbers of your projections. How many that you've done and how many that you guys are planning to do over the next year?
That was before this announcement has, has those numbers change. I, I do, I need an update on these uh different numbers. How many have you done? And how many are you gonna do?
Curtis Shuck
Well, I mean, it's definitely going to help us scale up. And so, you know, that's, that's the key and like I said earlier, you know, we, we definitely have more wells and money. Uh And so, uh but this is gonna, this is really gonna help us, like I said to, to move in some really important directions. You know, I also mentioned uh a new team we're working with in uh down in Scottsdale, Arizona that's supporting us with a lot of our back office uh work.
Um a lot of um you know, uh systems development for us as we're, as we're growing and, yeah, no, it's an exciting time. So, you know, I, I guess I'm not really ready to share any new projections, but maybe we save that for our next discussion. How about?
Jason Spiess
Yeah, I appreciate that. Well, this is relatively new. So I mean, this is kind of an announcement here but um how about how, how many wells have you plugged up to date? Do you know that?
Curtis Shuck
Yeah. Yeah. No, we're on for sure. That's, you know, branded in my head. So we're on, uh we are on number 18 right now and um here in Louisiana, so we're, you know, hopefully here and short order by, by next week we'll be over 20 is the plan.
Jason Spiess
So, and then I know, and then I've, I've got the numbers from before, what the projections were. I know you guys were looking at, you know, doubling that in the next year and maybe even more than that. So that's, that's outstanding work. To me, the big story was that, uh, last time we talked, you were, you know, you were talking about field offices down in Louisiana, uh, with the commitment and, and the sponsorship and support by Tito's.
And then now I'm hearing one of in Scottsdale, Arizona and now we've got another commitment, a big one coming out of Huntington Beach, California. I tell you, man, you're, you're, you're, you're rocking and rolling, you're doing everything, right?
Curtis Shuck
Well, it's, it's exciting and it's certainly not me. It's a, it's a, it's a village and a team sport. And so we're, you know, we're thankful for every, uh, every person that's, you know, donated to the cause who is, you know, volunteered, who's, you know, supporting us in any number of realms. I mean, I, I was earlier today trying to, you know, start counting and, you know, quickly gave up on that because it's just over overwhelming, but, you know, it's exciting and we want, you know,
everybody to know that they own a piece of these results. And, you know, that's what's so exciting about it is that, you know, people can absolutely, you know, say, you know, look, my DNA is on that project. I helped to do that and what a great legacy
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