UNSPSC 71122201: Slickline fishing services

Use of slickline to retrieve junk objects from downhole.

UNSPSC 71122201 Slickline fishing services, a Commodity code, describes wireline and mechanical services for oil and gas well intervention — services state and local governments procure almost exclusively in the context of orphaned well plugging and abandonment programs. Recent solicitations show that state environmental agencies, particularly Michigan's Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy, are actively buying wireline operator labor, equipment, and services as line items within larger well-plugging contracts that include site supervision, rig operations, cementing, mud engineering, waste disposal, and site restoration. The code encompasses specialized downhole work: the Michigan orphan well solicitations name wireline operator and wireline rigger classifications at prevailing wage rates and specify wireline services as discrete deliverables in 68-item pricing matrices. Issuing bodies soliciting under this code are state environmental and natural resource departments managing orphaned well remediation funded through federal grant programs such as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act; counties and municipalities do not independently procure slickline or wireline services outside the well-abandonment context.

Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy posted four separate orphan well direct solicitations in mid-July 2026 for plugging and site restoration across three wells, fourteen wells, nine wells, and twelve wells in Gratiot and Montcalm counties, with response deadlines of July 21, 2026. Each solicitation required prequalification through prior RFPs (numbers 210000000834, 220000000547, 220000001850, 220000002631, or 240000000951), mandatory pre-proposal meeting attendance, and 68-line pricing matrices that itemized wireline services alongside rig crews, labor, equipment, and materials. Wireline operators and wireline riggers earned prevailing wage rates of $39.57 per hour plus $25.25 fringe benefits under Davis-Bacon requirements. Activity concentrates in Michigan, where federally funded orphan well programs are actively funding remediation work; the code shows minimal to no procurement activity in other states or jurisdictions in the available recent opportunity block. Wireline services are consistently bundled into well-plugging RFPs and direct solicitations rather than procured as standalone services, and contract awards typically flow to prequalified well-plugging contractors rather than to equipment or wireline specialists as prime vendors.