Most P&A jobs don't fail because of what happens on the rig. They fail because of what didn't happen before the rig showed up. Missing offset data, overlooked injection activity, outdated casing records, regulatory surprises at the district level. By the time those problems surface, they cost days and dollars that were never in the budget.

That research gets skipped or rushed because the engineers responsible for it are the same ones running completions, managing production, and responding to day-to-day operational issues. P&A gets done, but rarely with the focus it deserves.

PlugSpec exists to give that work the rigor it requires. We handle the full scope: regulatory research, procedure development, compliance filings, and vendor coordination. The technology behind it lets us do in a fraction of the time what the industry still does by hand. Every output is reviewed by an engineer before it goes out, and every decision is logged so there's a complete audit trail.

// Why PlugSpec

P&A work is all we do.

From regulatory research through final compliance filing, we work exclusively on the operator's side. We don't plug wells, don't sell rig time, and don't mark up services. Our only incentive is making sure the job is scoped right, priced fairly, and closed out clean. Every procedure and filing is reviewed by an engineer before submission. We run a competitive bidding process across qualified vendors so operators get the best work at the lowest defensible cost.

Knowledge walks out the door

When the person who handled your last plug job leaves, everything they learned about your wells, your districts, and your regulatory history leaves with them. There's no system to catch it.

Teams stretched across priorities

The engineers assigned to P&A are usually the same ones managing completions, production, and capital planning. Closure work gets fit in around everything else, and the research suffers.

Pricing built on information gaps

When the party managing the plug job is also the one bidding on it or selecting the vendor, operators don't always have visibility into whether the scope and pricing reflect actual well conditions. Complete, independent well intelligence levels that playing field.

Regulatory surprises cause delays

District-level requirements, legacy records that were never digitized, formation-specific rules that vary by county. These don't show up until you're already committed to a timeline and a budget.

The P&A regulatory landscape is deeply fragmented. Each district, county, and field maintains unique requirements, formatted differently, sometimes referencing legacy records that have never been digitized. Some states are harder than others. New Mexico's plugging applications require extensive preparation, and if a submission comes back with errors, it goes to the back of the queue. That can mean months before the application is reviewed again. It's the kind of detail-heavy work that has to be done right the first time but shouldn't cost operators a premium to get off their plate. We've built the infrastructure to navigate all of it efficiently.

Our systems research, extract, and cross-reference regulatory data at a scale and speed that isn't possible manually. The result is procedures that reflect actual well conditions and local requirements from day one. Every output is reviewed by an engineer before it goes out, and every decision is logged so there's a defensible record.

Procedures that pass review the first time. Vendor bids based on actual well conditions. Compliance filings that hold up under scrutiny. One point of contact for procedures, filings, coordination, and vendor bidding. Your team stays focused on execution.

// Who we work with
Small & Mid-Size Operators

You don't have a dedicated P&A team and you shouldn't need one. What you need is someone you can hand a well to and trust that it gets closed right, on time, and under budget.

We act as your plugging engineering department. Full regulatory research, procedure development, vendor coordination, and compliance filings. You stay focused on what you do best. We make sure nothing falls through the cracks.

Large Operators

You have teams, but they turn over. The engineer who managed last year's plug campaign may not be the one managing next year's. Institutional knowledge gets lost, workflows fragment across groups, and every transition resets the learning curve.

PlugSpec provides a durable layer of P&A intelligence that doesn't depend on any one person. A single system for regulatory status, well conditions, and compliance history that persists across team changes, reorganizations, and asset transactions.

Regulatory Agencies

Federal and state programs are directing significant funding toward well closure, but deploying that capital efficiently requires engineering and administrative capacity that takes time to staff up. PlugSpec helps bridge that gap by handling the well-level compliance work, data assembly, and procedure development that turns allocated funding into plugged wells, on schedule and on budget.

Founder
John Freeman
Petroleum Engineer | EOG Resources, EIV Capital

Before starting PlugSpec, John spent his career at EOG Resources working across field operations, drilling, planning and development, and data science. In every role, the same issue surfaced: the data needed to make good decisions existed, but it lived in different systems, agencies, and formats that made it hard to use when it mattered most.

That experience, combined with acquisition diligence work at EIV Capital, shaped the conviction that well closure needed better intelligence delivered upfront, not just better tools handed to already-stretched teams.

Background
EOG Resources
Field operations, drilling, planning & development, and data science. Multi-basin experience.
EIV Capital
Midstream acquisition diligence and asset strategy.
Education
Texas A&M University
B.S., Petroleum Engineering
Harvard Business School
MBA, 2025

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