About that ground shaking 'problem'

[Bob]

Have they connected the dots?

There is a difference between hydraulic Fracturing, known as "Frack'ing" and deep wastewater injection into old oil wells.

The difference is simple in concept but complex in understanding the dynamics.

An oil well that has to be "fracked" is drilled into a "tight" formation which has little or no porosity, or the ability to release oil or gas much like a sponge being squeezed dry. The frack'ing operation injects either acid/gas/water into the drilled rock-zone under extreme pressure, and places "propants", or small objects that will hold open the fractures, so that the rock will release it's contents.

Now an injection well is something else. This is the equivalent of a toilet, where the contents of that waste-water well consists of what is considered "wastewater" from oil or chemical production, from wells which may be 10's or hundreds of miles away. Think of the logic of "out of sight, out of mind".

An injection well mostly likely had previously been fractured, many years ago, having fulfilled its function of allowing oil or gas to be extracted from the rock. Typically only 20-30% of the oil would have been extracted leaving the rest "down there" in the formation(s).

So what's the problem? Oil out, water back in... well the problem is, the wastewater keeps being put back in way way way after when the formation has been re-filled. Like a water balloon which keeps being "blown up, filled up" to the point of breaking, waste-water well mis-management has been implicated in causing earthquakes... the lubrication of fault zones allowing for slippage to happen is the predominant theory behind what is happening and has been happening in oil production fields around the world.

Fracking is a one or two time job, no biggie really to accomplish.. HOWEVER waste-water injection and re-injection is a building continual problem when fault zones become lubricated and are free to move. (Drilling operations tend to try to search for fault zones in hopes that oil or gas will be located in trapped spots.)

In Colorado:

The ground around a northern Colorado wastewater injection well has been relatively quiet for more than two months, offering hope that a 10-month string of more than 200 small earthquakes might have subsided.

The bottom 450 feet of the 10,800-foot-deep well was plugged with cement last year, and that might be keeping the wastewater — a byproduct of oil and gas wells — from seeping into fractures and triggering earthquakes, researchers and regulators say.

The newly shortened well is back in operation, and researchers say no quakes greater than magnitude 1 have been measured in a 7-mile radius around it since April 2.

Colorado is one of a handful of states grappling with earthquakes blamed on such wells, which inject wastewater deep underground because it's too salty or contaminated to be poured into rivers or lakes. Similar problems have been reported in Oklahoma and Texas, as well as Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, New Mexico and Ohio.

Wastewater injection is different from hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. Fracking is the practice of injecting high-pressure water, sand and chemicals into oil- or gas-bearing rock to increase the flow. Fracking is sometimes accompanied by "micro-earthquakes" that are usually too small to be felt, the U.S. Geological Survey says.

With earthquakes happening around WASTEWATER injection wells, attention has started to be focused on those being the epicenter for the problems.

A 3.2-magnitude earthquake radiated from the Colorado injection well site in Weld County about 65 miles north of Denver on May 31, 2014.

The quake was felt some 40 miles away but no damage was reported. Researchers and the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, which regulates the industry, eventually zeroed in on the well as the likely cause.

More on HOW the quakes are induced:

The last 450 feet of the Colorado well had probably penetrated a brittle layer know as basement rock, and the wastewater might have flowed into fractures, Sheehan said.

The wastewater had enough pressure to push the two sides of the cracks apart, allowing them to slip, the theory goes.

Injection wells are more likely to trigger earthquakes in basement rock because it is stiffer than sedimentary rock and better able to resist movement — unless something such as the injected wastewater makes it easier for it to slip, said Justin Rubinstein, a USGS seismologist.

Researchers have known for decades that injection wells can cause earthquakes, but the phenomenon is getting more attention because the number of quakes has increased dramatically in a swath of the central U.S. from Ohio across Colorado.

An average of 24 quakes of magnitude 3 or greater were recorded in that region every year from 1973 to 2008, but by 2014 it had risen to 688, the USGS says.

Basement rock is that original rock where when the earth was forming, organic matter eventually started to accumulate on top. The sediments were eventually the source of oil and gas, over many millions of years.

But the basement rock is part of the crust. Basement rock is the thick foundation of ancient, and oldest metamorphic and igneous rock that forms the crust of continents, often in the form of granite. And it provides a most intense base for earthquake energy to travel.

[Lifebringer]

Yep, crumbling the ground below them, and leaving the crack open enough to slip. It's really hard to believe this is BIG oil's answer to energy independence. If this is the best of their thinking minds, then they shouldn't get pad for thinking.

[Bob]

And, now 9.3 million $ have been spent to create a NEW and Improved Salt water disposal well system in Texas - in Waelder.

The location has been described as follows: The Fortress Environmental SWD site is located at GPS Coordinate: 29.661534, -97.299444, which is between Waelder and Gonzales in Texas on Highway 97 a 1/4 mile south of Interstate 10 (exit I-10 at mile marker 649).

Per the Texas Railroad Commission's filing papers, the El Cruce #1 SWD (disposal) well can accept 25,000 barrels of produced saltwater per day (that is more than 190 transport tanker trucks per day), which is then pumped under pressure to a depth of approximately 8,000 feet.

If one starts noticing earthquake increases in this area about 48 miles south southeast of Austin, Texas, maybe let us all know.

[Bob]

NO WE DIDN'T DO IT!

Texas Railroad Commission, the regulatory body for oil and gas production in Texas has said, that the Exxon Subsidiary who owns the super injection well site wasn't responsible, that pumping high pressure liquid down a well to dispose of contaminated water, isn't the source of the earthquakes.. (hmm...)

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The regulatory agency overseeing Texas' oil and gas industry has determined that a series of small earthquakes in North Texas likely wasn't caused by drilling operations by an Exxon Mobil subsidiary.

The preliminary findings mark the first decision by the Texas Railroad Commission since it was authorized last year to consider whether seismological activity was caused by injection wells, which store briny wastewater from hydraulic fracturing.

The commission ordered hearings after a university study suggested two companies' wells were responsible for quakes that shook Reno, Texas, in 2013 and 2014.

Commission investigators concluded that a well where Exxon Mobil subsidiary XTO Energy pumps millions of gallons of the wastewater likely didn't cause the quakes, but also said there wasn't enough evidence to demonstrate the earthquakes were naturally occurring. Parties have 15 days to respond.

The report was released Monday, a day before a new law took effect barring Texas cities and towns from banning hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and limiting local authority to restrict other oil and gas operations.

Reno Mayor Lynda Stokes, whose city passed an ordinance banning injection wells, said she wasn't surprised by the commission's findings and wasn't sure what legal recourse was available.

"They've pretty much given industry free reign to roll over us," she told The Associated Press.

The study published by Southern Methodist University geologists in April pinned the earthquakes to an XTO well and a well operated by Houston-based Enervest.

The study concluded that the quakes were triggered by rumblings in the shallow Ellenburger formation that migrated down the fault into the deepest layer of rock. The companies denied any connection.

There goes the neighborhood...

(actor Sorrell Booke from Dukes of Hazzard TV series)

(source)