Liquid Gold talks Kintla well project

On Aug. 7 Liquid Gold Well Service Inc of Cut Bank welded on the final cap to plug the first oil well drilled in Montana. The Butte No. 1 well has sat open near the back country campground at Kintla Lake within the boundaries of Glacier National Park for 125 years. Natural oil seeps inspired early oil explorers to drill the well in the remote wilderness area five miles from the foot of Kintla Lake and just feet from its banks.

At the time, Glacier Park didn’t yet exist. Breaking ground in 1901, Butte Oil Company used a wooden derrick and cable tools to reach a depth of approximately 1,450 feet before the derrick caught fire and the well was abandoned. In 2023, natural gases were detected to be leaking from the Butte Oil Well. 

The area is seismically active; tremors and changing pressures within the bedrock often lead to gas escapes. Such conditions present a health and safety hazard. Plugging the well was considered essential to reduce methane leaks, prevent the migration of chemicals into the lake, minimize physical hazards, and ensure adherence to environmental regulations.

In May of 2025, representatives from Liquid Gold kayaked to the well site during a preliminary site visit as part of the project’s bid process outlined by the Montana Technological University of Butte. 

The company’s management team went to work designing a plugging program to not only cap the century old well, but also maintain as little environmental impact at the site as possible. This was the tricky part. Being local Montanans ourselves, we appreciate our wilderness and the importance of preserving the area while also understanding the equipment and processes necessary to complete any well plugging program.

 Liquid Gold Well Service was one of few companies to submit a bid for the project, and in July 2025 they were offered the contract.

With the project scheduled to begin in late July 2026, the company had one year to turn their 115-page project plan into a reality. Our biggest obstacle was how remote the site was. We knew our only viable options to mobilize equipment large enough to complete the project were to utilize a large water craft, and helicopter. With the project schedule spanning through the heart of Montana’s wildfire season, acquiring a heavy lift helicopter proved to be difficult. 

We spent months contacting a dozen heavy lift contractors across North America. Due to wildfire commitments, we continued to get turned down. 

The company was able to secure a contract with Timberline Helicopters based in Sandpoint, Idaho. 

Heavy lift helicopter use was limited to just mobilizing and demobilizing the large service equipment to and from the location. Smaller equipment, tools, disposal fluid, and personnel would need to be transported daily. 

For this, the company was permitted to use a motorized landing craft on Kintla Lake. Liquid Gold contacted Hard Drive Marine in Bellingham, Washington and tasked them with building a landing craft large enough to transport the equipment needed while still being light enough to be lifted into the lake by helicopter. After securing the means of transportation for the project, Shane’s team got to work on designing the equipment needed to complete the well plugging. Docks and equipment platforms were built from locally sourced, untreated, Flathead Valley lumber. 

The service rig was built on adjustable jacks to reduce impacts on vegetation and allowed the site to maintain its natural contour. 

The project began in July 2026 and was completed in the middle of August with the well being successfully plugged and the location restored back to its natural condition. The plugged and capped well now sits below the surface of the forest floor. Although the visible surface casing of the well no longer remains, other materials around the site related to the 125-year-old well will stay and serve as historic artifacts.

Liquid Gold Well Service Inc would like to thank all of its partners for the successful completion of the Butte Oil No. 1 well plugging project: The National Park Service, Glacier National Park, Montana Tech, Montana Board of Oil and Gas, Timberline Helicopters, and Hard Drive Marine. We would like to extend a special thank you to the Glacier Park staff that we built great relationships with the Kintla Lake camp host, Kintla Lake Ranger, GNP gate staff, GNP fisheries dept., GNP law enforcement, and GNP site monitors. 

We would also like to recognize the friendly staff at the Polebridge Mercantile and appreciate the outpouring of support and patience from park visitors who were present throughout the project. We understand that people travel from all over the world to see the beauty within our state and we worked closely with GNP officials to make sure they could still enjoy the area while we completed this important, monumental, task.

Liquid Gold Owners Shane and Kris Schwindt purchased 10 acres in the Trail Creek area of the North Fork in the fall of 2025. A wind storm swept across the area in December causing massive timber blow down in the region. They hired a local logging contractor and had two acres of the land harvested and cleared. This became an ideal spot for staging the equipment to be long-lined and flown to the well site. 

We had a small area of the property cleaned up and cleared off, no structures were developed on the property relating to the project. We are aware of the rumor that a helipad was built, and that’s simply not true. We plan to recycle the locally sourced lumber from the project to build a single room cabin on the property. Shane and Kris would like to thank their neighbors adjacent to the property for their help and support. 

Liquid Gold Well Service Inc is a local, family owned, company based in Cut Bank. Founded in 1988, it is nearing its 40th year in business. They specialize in all aspects of oil and gas well rehabilitation from routine well services to plug and abandonments.

Larry Schwindt

Liquid Gold Well Service

Cut Bank