Liability shifting (spin-offs, bankruptcy, closure bonds)
29 cases in 12 countries, 1943–2024. Most cases: United States (17), United Kingdom (3), Australia (2), Canada (2), France (2).
Pilbara Minerals' profit fell sharply as lithium prices slumped; Li-Cycle went bankrupt
Pilbara Minerals' FY24 profit fell by 86% to 89%, depending on the measure, as lithium prices slumped and its Bald Hill mine closed. Battery recycler Li-Cycle went bankrupt in 2025, and the cited sources do not set out any effect on nature.
Exide's Vernon lead smelter abandoned in bankruptcy, leaving California to pay for cleanup
Battery recycler Exide left its Vernon, California, lead smelter through bankruptcy in 2020. The state has spent $260 million on the cleanup, and a further $390 million is reported as needed.
Mali gold mine closures handed to the state: Yatela, Morila and Sadiola closure money
In 2019 SADEX (AngloGold Ashanti/IAMGOLD) agreed to sell its 80% of the Yatela gold mine in Mali for USD 1, with a one-time payment of approximately USD 18.5 million to a state agency and release from rehabilitation and closure obligations; in 2025 Mali's government completed the takeover of Yatela and Morila, citing significant environmental and financial liabilities. At Sadiola, a 2023 technical report estimates closure costs of about USD 88–90 million and records arsenic in waste rock.
Blackjewel bankruptcy and mine reclamation bonds in Kentucky, Virginia and Wyoming
Coal producer Blackjewel filed for bankruptcy in 2019 with mine cleanup bonds in Kentucky, Virginia and Wyoming. Whether the bonds would pay to reclaim the land depends on figures the sources report only in part.
US regulator cites Holtec over use of decommissioning fund money
Holtec spent about $266,000 from decommissioning funds on festivities and donations that the NRC found improper, Provincetown Independent reported. What is at stake is the money set aside to dismantle reactors and clean up their sites.
Nautilus Minerals goes bankrupt; successor TMC rises from its ashes
Nautilus Minerals, which was running the Solwara 1 seabed mining project off Papua New Guinea, went bankrupt in 2019. The sources describe The Metals Company, formerly DeepGreen, as having risen from its ashes.
PG&E wildfire settlement, tax deduction and Fire Victim Trust
After the 2018 Camp Fire, PG&E pleaded guilty to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter, settled with the California regulator for about US$1.8 billion and funded a victims' trust about half in its own stock. California customers fund half of a state wildfire fund.
Duke Energy coal ash cleanup cost recovery (North Carolina)
Duke Energy's coal ash cleanup in North Carolina was estimated at $8 to 9 billion. Regulators allowed part of the cost to be recovered from customers, and a January 2021 settlement with the state attorney general kept about $1.1 billion off customer bills.
US tax deductibility of environmental settlements (IRC 162(f))
US tax law denies a deduction for amounts paid to a government for violating a law, but allows one for amounts identified in the settlement as restitution, remediation or compliance. A 2005 GAO review found that agencies did not negotiate the point and that responding companies deducted all or part of the payment in 20 of 34 settlements.
Georgia-Pacific, Bestwall and the Texas two-step
In 2017 Georgia-Pacific, a Koch-owned company, moved its asbestos liabilities into a new unit, Bestwall, which then filed for bankruptcy with about 64,000 cases pending. The proceeding had run more than nine years by 2026.
Chemours spin-off liabilities
DuPont spun off Chemours in 2015, and DuPont's PFAS liabilities were transferred to the new company. Chemours, DuPont and Corteva have since settled PFAS claims under cost-sharing arrangements, and Chemours has sued DuPont over how the liabilities were divided.
Burkina Faso mine rehabilitation fund collected 29.59% of expected contributions in 2023 and 49.55% in 2024
Industrial mines, semi-mechanised mines and industrial quarries in Burkina Faso pay into the FRFM, a fund for rehabilitating land affected by extraction. The fund collected CFA 7.22bn of CFA 24.39bn expected in 2023 and CFA 13.73bn of CFA 27.71bn in 2024; the government announced firmness toward non-paying operators.
Woodside's Northern Endeavour transfer to NOGA and state-funded decommissioning
Woodside transferred its Northern Endeavour production vessel and fields in Australia to a small company, NOGA, along with A$24 million in cash. After NOGA collapsed in 2019 the state took over removal, and a special sector tax to meet the cost exceeded A$1.1 billion.
Coal bankruptcies bring Peabody's self-bonds into view
Coal company bankruptcies in 2015 and 2016 made self-bonds visible; these are the company guarantees that secured mine cleanup. Peabody held 1.1652 billion dollars of them nationally and is also listed among ALEC supporters.
Kerr-McGee / Anadarko fraudulent transfer settlement
A US court found that the separation of Tronox from Kerr-McGee was a fraudulent transfer. Anadarko Petroleum, whose subsidiaries were the defendants, paid USD 5.15 billion in a settlement, USD 4.4 billion of it for cleanup and environmental claims.
North Sea platform decommissioning tax relief (UK)
UK tax law lets oil and gas operators recover part of the cost of dismantling North Sea platforms. The regulator estimated the remaining cost to the Exchequer at GBP 10.8 billion.
ASARCO bankruptcy environmental settlement and Grupo México's return in 2009
ASARCO left bankruptcy in 2009 with a $1.79 billion environmental settlement covering more than 80 sites in 19 states. Grupo México regained the company in the same year.
Peabody, Patriot Coal and coal self-bonding
US coal companies were allowed to back mine-cleanup obligations with their own balance sheets rather than third-party guarantees. After bankruptcies in 2015–2016 and 2019, the sums at stake became visible.
Alberta orphan wells and mine liabilities
In Alberta, security held against oil-sands mine closure costs was recorded at $1.46 billion against $28.35 billion of liabilities, while the inventory of wells left without a solvent owner reached 7,302 by July 2026. Mines are secured in advance; orphan-well cleanup is paid for afterwards by an industry levy and public loans.
Alberta orphan wells, closure liabilities and the Redwater ruling
In Alberta, security held against oil-sands mine closure costs was recorded at $1.46 billion against $28.35 billion of liabilities, an internal 2018 regulator estimate put oil and gas closure liabilities at C$260 billion against a disclosed C$58 billion, and the inventory of wells left without a solvent owner reached 7,302 by July 2026. In 2019 the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in Redwater that a bankrupt company's closure obligations rank ahead of secured creditors.
Brent Spar decommissioning controversy (North Sea)
Sources describe the Brent Spar controversy only through later references: a 1995 trade-press headline on a Greenpeace admission of error and the later cost to the UK public of North Sea decommissioning.
Asbestos 524(g) bankruptcy trusts and J&J talc two-step
US asbestos claims are paid from trusts set up in bankruptcy under Section 524(g). A 2011 federal audit found a median payment of 25% of claim value; later, companies moved talc and asbestos claims into new entities that filed for bankruptcy.
US Superfund tax and funding shortfall
The US Superfund programme, created in 1980 to clean up contaminated sites, was financed by chemical and petroleum taxes until they lapsed at the end of 1995. The taxes returned in 2022 and 2023; fiscal 2024 receipts were about $1.2 billion against an estimate of $2.5 billion.
Arlit and Akokan uranium waste: Cominak closure, remediation provision and radioactivity measurements
The Cominak underground uranium mine in northern Niger stopped production on 31 March 2021 and left about 20 million tonnes of waste beside the towns of Arlit and Akokan. Remediation was reported at €150 million, Orano kept a €70 million provision after losing control in December 2024, and the works were suspended.
Baikalsk Pulp and Paper Mill: closure and waste clean-up
The Baikalsk Pulp and Paper Mill discharged treated wastewater into Lake Baikal from 1966 and stopped production in 2013 after bankruptcy proceedings. Millions of tonnes of pulp-production waste remained in storage ponds on the shore, and federal clean-up funding has been set by successive programmes since 2013.
French nuclear tests in the Algerian Sahara: buried waste, maps and compensation
France states it carried out 17 nuclear tests in the Algerian Sahara between 1960 and 1966. Of 4,455 claims registered by France's compensation committee CIVEN in 2010–2025, 73 came from residents of Algeria, and one of the 1,206 claims CIVEN accepted by decision was from a resident of Algeria.
Sellafield decommissioning and Hanford cleanup budgets
Two state-funded nuclear clean-up programmes, Hanford in the United States and Sellafield in the United Kingdom, carry cost estimates of hundreds of billions of dollars and many decades of work. At Hanford, contractors settled False Claims Act cases in 2016 and 2020.
Hanford contractors settle false-claims suits as cleanup estimates rise
Bechtel and URS, now part of AECOM, paid $125 million in 2016 and $57.8 million in 2020 to settle claims over billing at the Hanford nuclear site. The US Department of Energy now estimates the cleanup at $364 billion to $589.4 billion, finishing in 2086; the stake for nature is nuclear waste beside the Columbia River.
Fieldwood bankruptcy and US offshore decommissioning
Estimated decommissioning liabilities for US offshore oil platforms are far larger than the supplemental bonds held against them. The bankruptcy of Fieldwood Energy moved about $9 billion of liabilities to co-owners and previous owners.
Bonds and banking
- Liquidation, insolvency, bankruptcy
- Legal processes that apply when a company cannot pay its debts; its assets are sold and claims against it may go unpaid.