1.   In some cases, companies have used these extensions to delay plugging wells for years.

2.   Leaking wells are plugged first, according to a priority system.

3.   Oil and gas operators are supposed to plug a well after its productive life ends.

4.   Porter said the testing of any prospective zones would have to had been done before the well was plugged and abandoned.

5.   The agency runs a program to plug the wells, but it is regularly running out of money for the work.

6.   The next day the well was plugged.

7.   The security council considered a CIA recommendation to only moderately plug the wells, so that they could be reopened by the United States when the territory was regained.

8.   To cover the costs of plugging the wells, the state has sued some oil producers for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

9.   Weathers, now retired in Vista, Calif., said Aramco engineers devised a method to plug the wells with concrete slurry.

10.   Engineers hoped to plug the well late Thursday or Friday, he said.