Oklahoma Orders Cut to Disposal Well Volumes Following Quakes
Oklahoma regulators forced an oil and gas producer to reduce operations on a well used for disposing saltwater following a large earthquake over the weekend that set off a series of seismic activity in the state, Matt Skinner, spokesman for the Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC), said on Monday. The temblors occurred near Perry, Oklahoma, in the northwestern part of the state, within an area signaled out by regulators for the frequency of earthquakes from oil and gas production activities.
OK Regulator: Quake Increase a "Game Changer"
From June 17 to 24, there have been 35 earthquakes of magnitude 3.0 or greater in the state, according to the Oklahoma Geological Survey. Particularly worrying for regulators, some of the recent quakes occurred in the Oklahoma City metropolitan area, where there are no high-volume wastewater injection wells. The spike in quakes comes roughly two months after new rules governing the disposal of briny wastewater from drilling took full effect. Drillers were ordered by the Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC)…
Oklahoma Earthquake Surge Tied to Energy Activity -Study
A dramatic jump in the number of earthquakes in Oklahoma to a rate never seen there by scientists before, appears to be caused by a small number of wells where wastewater associated with oil and gas production is injected into the ground, a study released on Thursday said. Just a few of these so-called disposal wells, operating at very high volumes, "create substantial anthropogenic seismic hazard," according to findings from Cornell University researchers published in the journal Science.
