UNSPSC 71161800: Oilfield waste management services

Service to manage the processes and actions to safely and efficiently manage waste from its inception to final disposal, in an oil and gas platform or worksite.

UNSPSC 71161800 Oilfield waste management services, a Class code, does not align with the state and local procurement activity recently tagged under it. The recent opportunities block contains sixteen solicitations—eleven for well drilling, plugging, and abandonment services; three for building demolition; one for wastewater pump station maintenance; and one for natural gas testing. None of these solicitations involve oilfield waste management in the nominal sense. The mismatch suggests either a classification error at the time of posting or a broad reinterpretation of the code to encompass water and wastewater infrastructure work generally, but the source provides no explicit guidance. State and local bodies issuing under this code span state environmental and energy departments, county and municipal water utilities, and county facilities departments. Recent activity clusters in Michigan (Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy, issuing multiple orphan well plugging RFPs and direct solicitations for gas storage well remediation), Mississippi (Mississippi Oil and Gas Board, managing orphaned oil and gas well plugging under Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act funding), Florida (City of DeBary, Escambia County, Sarasota County, Hillsborough County, and Seminole County, issuing irrigation and water well projects), Georgia (City of Albany, City of Wrens, City of Reynolds), Illinois (Illinois Department of Corrections and Department of Natural Resources), and scattered single solicitations in Texas, Colorado, Oregon, and other jurisdictions.

Representative recent opportunities include the Mississippi Oil and Gas Board's IFB for plugging and remediation of nine orphaned oil and gas wells in Jasper and Jones Counties, with bids due December 18, 2026; the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy's direct solicitations for orphan well plugging in Gratiot and Montcalm Counties (four separate RFQs with responses due July 21, 2026, restricted to prequalified vendors); the State of Michigan's award notification for the Gilbert Orphan Well Plugging project in Kent County issued October 13, 2026; and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources' small-business-set-aside IFB for supplemental irrigation well installation at Union County State Fish and Wildlife Area, with bids due July 9, 2026. Water infrastructure work dominates: well drilling, abandonment, plugging, rehabilitation, pump maintenance, and monitoring well installation across municipal, county, and state customer bases. The code sees steady activity across the upper Midwest and Southeast, with federal funding (Davis-Bacon prevailing wage, Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act compliance, Build America Buy America Act mandates) driving much of the recent volume. No single jurisdiction emerges as a dominant repeat buyer, though Michigan's EGLE and Mississippi's Oil and Gas Board show repeated solicitation activity consistent with state-level orphan well remediation programs. The recent-opportunities block contains no solicitations explicitly tagged as oilfield waste management per se; pursue decisions should reflect the geographic and service-type mix observed rather than the abstract code name.