Actions Taken to Lessen Earthquake Risk in Oklahoma’s Newest Oil-Gas Play
A new protocol has been developed to further reduce the chances of a felt earthquake resulting from well completion activities in Oklahoma's newest and biggest oil and gas play.
In
OGCD Director
"The overall induced earthquake rate has decreased over the past year, but the number of felt earthquakes that may be linked to well completion activity, including hydraulic fracturing, in the SCOOP and STACK has increased," noted Baker. "These events are relatively rare and smaller on average than those linked to injection activity. Most importantly, the risk of such events appears to be manageable. Learning how to mitigate the risk of causing such events is an ongoing process. The changes we are announcing today are part of that process."
Among the changes being made in the seismicity protocol:
1)All operators in the defined area will be required to have access to a seismic array that will give real-time seismicity readings.
2)The minimum level at which the operator must take action has been lowered from a2.5 magnitude (ML) to 2.0 ML. Generally, the minimum level at which earthquakescan be felt is about 2.5 ML.
3)Some operators will have to pause operations for 6 hours at 2.5 ML. Under the previous protocol, the minimum level requiring a pause was 3.0ML.
Baker said the data gathered over the past year indicates earlier action may be best.
"While more study needs to be done, the indications are that those operators who have their own seismic arrays and took actions when there were seismicevents too small to be felt decreased the risk of having multiple, stronger earthquakes," said Baker
OGS Director Dr.
"Ultimately, the goal is to have enough information to develop plans that will virtually eliminate the risk of a felt earthquake from a well completion operation in the SCOOP and STACK," said Boak.
According to State Seismologist Dr.
"The cost associated with expanding the seismic network would be a relatively small investment that would help to ensure the safe development of
Baker, Boak and Walter agree that while important, the threat of induced earthquakes from well completion activity is much smaller than the threat linked to injection of oil and gas wastewater in the north-central area of the state, where the larger and more frequent earthquakes have occurred.
"Production within the 15 thousand square mile earthquake Area of Interest (AOI) resulted in an unprecedented amount of salt water which was already in the formation coming up with the oil and natural gas," Baker explained. "That produced water was put back underground using disposal wells. There is broad agreement among researchers that disposal of these large amounts of water into the Arbuckle, the state's deepest formation, can be linked to the high earthquake rate we saw in recent years within parts of the AOI. By comparison, the SCOOP and STACK plays have very small amounts of produced water and whatever earthquake activity there is tends to be much smaller. We currently estimate less than four percent of detectable, induced earthquake activity in
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