I've been watching Oklahoma's increase in earthquakes the past couple years and have a curiosity. I hope it isn't outside the scope of the website to ask about it here. Some web searching hasn't gotten me good results.
Is there any historical data or science which give an idea how earthquakes affect horizontal well production? Oklahoma's have been between 2.5 and 4.5 on the scale and pretty frequent lately, almost daily. I'm not asking if fracking causes earthquakes, refreshing - eh?
The area around Timpson, Texas has been the site of several recent earthquakes, most recent ranging up to 4.3 on the Richter scale. Timpson is located within the Haynesville Shale formation, whereas numerous horizontal wells have been drilled. The RRC of Texas was quoted in the Longview News Journal regarding these quakes effects on existing pipelines and wells. If you will google "Timpson earthquake", you can read the article I am referring to. Hope this helps.
Go to the USGS in Golden, CO where they track earth movements all over the world. You can get a map of all major occurrences in Oklahoma. I will guess that most movements are focused on the subsurface mountain ranges and the SW limit of the Anadarko Basin.
Fracking is actually a man made "earthquake" made in sedimentary deposits, so naturally induced permeability increases would be welcomed. However, if a fault through the North American Craton (including Oklahoma) is severe enough to shear a horizontal well, that will be the least of anyone's worries.
What would be the likely hood of the O admin siccing the EPA on the industry? I wondered given the recent rulings on water on private property, if there will be an attempt to federalize private land. After all even if it is underground they might claim oversight rights.
thanx for the answers so far. I read the Longview news article Charles. I hadn't given much thought to pipelines yet. Was thinking about newer wells and expected/hoped for wells to come. Which both Clint and Gary touch on. Clint's point of possibly collapsing the fracking done to some degree made me think a little more about it, Gary's point of it naturally increasing the fracking job was more in the direction my thoughts were on, or maybe even the shaking would increase the flow - kind of like shaking a sifter if ya will. Would increasing the fracking's range risk wells bleeding together or possibly into undesirable adjacent formations?
anyways - wow, I must've asked a good question judging by the responders it got! thanx guys.
Gary L. Hutchinson said:
Larry,
Go to the USGS in Golden, CO where they track earth movements all over the world. You can get a map of all major occurrences in Oklahoma. I will guess that most movements are focused on the subsurface mountain ranges and the SW limit of the Anadarko Basin.
Fracking is actually a man made "earthquake" made in sedimentary deposits, so naturally induced permeability increases would be welcomed. However, if a fault through the North American Craton (including Oklahoma) is severe enough to shear a horizontal well, that will be the least of anyone's worries.
You have asked a very good question. Related to your query, does anyone know the number of deep injection wells, that are used for disposal of fracking fluid and are monitored by the EPA, in Oklahoma and Texas' Haynesville Shale? Also, are any of them located near known faults? Of note, several prominent folks have recommended that the wells in question not be drilled near such faults because they may cause earthquakes.
The RRC of Texas should have a listing of all injection/disposal wells across the State including the Haynesville Shale area. Of course you will most likely find these wells near faults but good luck on passing legislation to restrict drilling near fault areas.
;' / we've transitioned to 'are we causing the earthquakes' and disposal wells.. oh well, here's my opinion on that;
I don't know, but don't really think disposal wells are all that wise - or wasting/ruining millions of gallons of fresh surface water for fracking is either. Devon is implementing a pipeline structure to re-use the water flowing from their holes for fracking other holes - I like that. What happened to the momentum using LNG for fracking instead of water had? I really liked the sound of that idea. The less disposal wells the better IMO. -- Legislate against drilling near faults?? I'm definitely no geological guru, but seems to me faults tend to have a lot of oil near them. It also seems to me it's not the fracking or taking of the oil that is suspected of causing earthquakes, the likely candidate is the weight of the disposed water in disposal wells.
and to Earnest's point - Do I think EPA is being sicced on the industry?? Absolutely, without doubt - and about every other industry that isn't based solely on electronic pulses. Long before the current administration EPA got waaayyy too big for it's britches but that is being taken the maximum extreme with this admin. It attacks all aspects of our lives continually. It has become a monster against the very concepts of freedom, individual property ownership and wealth creation by harvesting nature, improving what was harvested and selling the new product for a profit.
-------------
so, anybody got an opinion of whether the shaking of fracked formations might increase the flow for production?
The RRC of Texas should have a listing of all injection/disposal wells across the State including the Haynesville Shale area. Of course you will most likely find these wells near faults but good luck on passing legislation to restrict drilling near fault areas.
Where can you find a list of the deep injection wells and their locations in Oklahoma, Charles?
charles s mallory said:
Larry:
The RRC of Texas should have a listing of all injection/disposal wells across the State including the Haynesville Shale area. Of course you will most likely find these wells near faults but good luck on passing legislation to restrict drilling near fault areas.
What would be the likely hood of the O admin siccing the EPA on the industry? I wondered given the recent rulings on water on private property, if there will be an attempt to federalize private land. After all even if it is underground they might claim oversight rights.
That is the stuff of conspiracy buffs. No action has been taken to date and nothing has been proposed outside of the tin foil hat arena.
Faults are faults but not all faults are equal. Ancient faults are generally stable and no more likely to move than unfaulted ground. If a fault represents a weakness along a plane, then with movement the footwall and hanging wall of the fault could move in relationship to each other, either side to side or up and down. That would potentially cut the pipe in two. Horizontal portions of the well are generally sited away from a fault so they are much less likely to be affected. It is only the vertical section so affected. It would be rare.
Many earthquakes are far deeper than the wells. It should not impact the well in that case. There does appear to be a relationship between injection of waste (produced water or frack fluids) into injection wells. High pressure injection of large amounts of fluid is a much more aggressive process than producing or fracking a well. That was one problem at the Gay, Arkansas site where several injection wells were injecting fluids deep into formations well below the Fayetteville Shale. The area to the SE around Enola had "swarmed" earthquakes back in the 1980s when little development in the region was on going. But there does appear to be a direct relationship between the injection into these disposal wells and the spate of earthquakes. Once the injection was stopped, the quakes have subsided somewhat.
Jones, OK is another issue. Quaking appears to be widespread from Jones. Quakes 50 miles away are not caused by injection in the Jones wells - and visa versa. There may be a larger tectonic force at work. It may cease at some point, or even increase.
FYI - We humans have a time scale that does not fit the Geological time scale. If you ever go to White Sands, New Mexico, take a drive north through Alamogordo and Tularosa, then on past the site of the Trinity A-bomb test and a few miles north of there is Carrizozo. Just out of town to the north is a black flow of lava. You can see it from the foothills across the valley. It looks like black ooze that spilled out over the plains....which is exactly what it is. This lava flow is miles in size and may be as young as a thousand years, only a few centuries before Europeans came here. The natives obviously were around to see this flow. Who is to say another such lava flow won't occur in New Mexico or elsewhere, maybe in our lifetime?
I believe it was Thomas Jefferson who told us that we should have a revolution every 20 years, to keep our government honest and under our control (not vice versa). We have an estimated 8 million private royalty owners in America today. Only about 20% of those are entities (trusts, estates, corporations, etc.), the rest are U. S. citizens with voting rights and the right to bear arms. The right to own property is an inalienable right. Does that answer your question?
Earnest said:
What would be the likely hood of the O admin siccing the EPA on the industry? I wondered given the recent rulings on water on private property, if there will be an attempt to federalize private land. After all even if it is underground they might claim oversight rights.
I simply was adding to the topic something that the EPA just a few days before stated. While I felt a simple conjecture did not warrant a separate topic it fit within the framework of this discussion. As to “inalienable rights” , I believe the last few decades have proven that they remain unalienable only as long as those in power are held in check by a knowledgable and responsible public. That is all I have to say, out of respect for the thread’s integrity.