Hydraulic fracturing operation for oil and gas production and associated earthquake activities across the USA

Villa, Valeria; Singh, Ramesh P.

doi:10.1007/s12665-020-09008-0

Cited by 9 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…The latest research showed that short-term hydraulic fracturing was less likely to cause rock mass instability or earthquakes, but the long-term fluid injection could increase the pore pressure and change the in situ stress field in a large area, thereby inducing an earthquake (Wang et al, 2020). Furthermore, Villa and Singh (2020) reached the same conclusion through a detailed analysis of 17 major hydraulic fracturing sites in the United States. They found that the incidence of earthquakes depends on the amount of water injected from horizontal injection wells; disposal injection wells; and the geological, hydrological, and geophysical environment near the drilling site.…”

Section: Earthquakes Light Pollution and Noise Pollutionmentioning

confidence: 92%

Identifying and Regulating the Environmental Risks in the Development and Utilization of Natural Gas as a Low-Carbon Energy Source

Liu

Sun

2021

Front. Energy Res.

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In response to climate change and energy transition, natural gas has been rapidly developed as a relatively low-carbon energy source by many countries. However, there remain environmental risks at different stages in the entire process from exploitation to utilization. Firstly, this article identifies various environmental risks and benefits of natural gas along the entire industry chain from upstream exploitation and midstream transportation to downstream utilization. It is found that, during upstream exploitation, hydraulic fracturing has the worst environmental impact. During the midstream storage and transportation stage, methane leakage is the biggest environmental risk. In the downstream combustion and utilization stage, the risk to environment is less than other energy sources, although there are some greenhouse gas effects and water pollution issues. Thus, this article puts forward some policy recommendations for different stages from exploitation to utilization. In the upstream stage, especially hydraulic fracturing activity, we suggest strengthening environmental assessment management, improving policy standards, creating a water quality monitoring plan, and promoting the innovation of key technologies. In terms of the midstream, besides pipeline laying and site selection, we focus on monitoring the system, including leak detection, quality management of engineering materials, and risk identification and management. When it comes to the downstream, we encourage the application of advanced technologies to improve thermal efficiency and reduce emissions, such as gas-fired related technologies, natural gas recycling technologies, distributed energy technologies, and green and low-carbon service technologies.

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Section: Earthquakes Light Pollution and Noise Pollutionmentioning

confidence: 92%

Identifying and Regulating the Environmental Risks in the Development and Utilization of Natural Gas as a Low-Carbon Energy Source

Liu

Sun

2021

Front. Energy Res.

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“…In shale formations, the process is done by drilling a horizontal well followed by pressurizing a limited section of the cased well by a mixture of fluids and proppants, called HF fluid (Davis & Fisk, 2017). Seismicity can be induced during or after the high‐pressure injection of fluids for formations with existing faults due to the influence of this process on the stress and strain along the fault system (Villa & Singh, 2020). Studies have concluded that most of the earthquakes induced by shale‐gas stimulation are unfelt (Davies et al., 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Various case studies have attempted to understand the connection of mining (Mendecki et al., 2020) and fluid production with induced seismicity (Benson et al., 2020; Davies et al., 2013; Deng et al., 2020; van Thienen‐Visser et al., 2018; Zbinden et al., 2017). Meanwhile, researchers have agreed on the effect of waste fluid disposal (Healy et al., 1968), geothermal systems (Bommer et al., 2006), oil and gas production (Chang & Segall, 2016; Suckale, 2009; Villa & Singh, 2020), and hydraulic fracturing (HF) (Bao & Eaton, 2016; Brudzinski & Kozłowska, 2019; Deng et al., 2016) on the activation of dormant faults, especially that the time of some of these operations was linked to the seismic events occurring in the respective region. Unconventional oil and gas production, including HF operations, does not always induce felt seismic events of major public concern; however, under specific geological factors, major seismicity can occur even after the cessation of operations (Rashedi & Mahani, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analysis of the Hydrogeological Conditions Affecting Fault Response to Nearby Hydraulic Fracturing

2022

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The response of critically stressed dormant faults to fluid perturbation, by oil and gas production, has been a major public concern because of its link to induced seismicity. In this paper, we study the hydrogeological factors that affect a nearby fault response, during and after hydraulic fracturing (HF) operations, evaluated by the change in Coulomb Failure Stress (CFS) and the rate of seismicity (R) through coupling solid deformation and fluid flow. Our results show that the pore pressure increases rapidly in a fault that is close (hydraulically connected) to HF operations, which might lead to its activation when the injection rate is high. When the fault is adjacent to HF but distant from it, its shallow region is subjected to a stabilizing deformation‐induced normal compressive stress and its deeper region is destabilized under extension. In this case, the fault orientation and damage zone size have a significant effect on the fault's stability and response. On the other hand, decreasing the rate of injection can either increase or decrease the CFS values depending on the fault location and the dominant stresses. Therefore, serious attention should be given to the fault position, its architecture, and the injection rate to help reduce the potential for induced seismicity from HF. Our findings are verified and confirmed using the case of the Duvernay formation in Alberta, Canada, where the reported seismic data correlate with high CFS and R values.

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“…Various case studies have attempted to understand the connection of mining (Mendecki et al, 2020) and fluid production with induced seismicity (Davies et al, 2013;Zbinden et al, 2017;van Thienen-Visser et al, 2018;Deng et al, 2020;Benson et al, 2020). Meanwhile, researchers have agreed on the effect of waste fluid disposal (Healy et al, 1968), geothermal systems (Bommer et al, 2006), oil and gas production (Chang and Segall, 2016;Suckale, 2009;Villa and Singh, 2020), and hydraulic fracturing (Bao and Eaton, 2016;Deng et al, 2016;Brudzinski and Kozłowska, 2019) on the activation of dormant faults, especially that the time of some of these operations was linked to the seismic events occurring in the respective region. Unconventional oil and gas production, including hydraulic fracturing operations, does not always induce seismic events; however, under specific geological factors, seismicity can occur even after the cessation of operations (Rashedi and Mahani, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In shale formations, the process is done by drilling a horizontal well followed by pressurizing a limited section of the cased well by a mixture of fluids and proppants, called fracking fluid (Davis and Fisk, 2017). Seismicity can be induced during or after the highpressure injection of fluids for formations with existing faults due to the influence of this process on the stress and strain along the fault system (Villa and Singh, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analysis of the Hydrogeological Conditions Affecting Fault Response to Nearby Hydraulic Fracturing

Yehya

Basbous

Maalouf

2022

Preprint

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The response of critically stressed dormant faults to fluid perturbation, by oil and gas production, has been a major public concern because of its link to induced seismicity. In this paper, we study the hydrogeological factors that affect a nearby fault response, during and after hydraulic fracturing (HF) operations, evaluated by the change in Coulomb Failure Stress (CFS) through coupling solid deformation and fluid flow. We take the Duvernay formation in Alberta, Canada as a base study case for our analysis. Our results show that the injection rate and the fault's distance to HF operations play an important role in increasing the CFS and hence the probability of fault reactivation. When the fault is far from the operations, its damage zones allow lateral diffusion and prevent pore pressure build up in its upper part, which stabilizes it. The lower part, however, will be under a lower normal stress and its failure may be triggered by an increase in shear stress. This is not the case for close faults where the damage zones act as conduits for pressure diffusion and the possible triggering failure mechanism will be the increase in pore pressure. Moreover, we show that the width of the HF zone does not affect the activation mechanisms or the stability of the fault unless it is hydraulically connected to its damage zone. Therefore, serious attention should be given to the fault position, its architecture, and the volume of fluid injected to help reduce the potential for induced seismicity from HF.

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Hydraulic fracturing operation for oil and gas production and associated earthquake activities across the USA

Cited by 9 publications

References 37 publications

Identifying and Regulating the Environmental Risks in the Development and Utilization of Natural Gas as a Low-Carbon Energy Source

Identifying and Regulating the Environmental Risks in the Development and Utilization of Natural Gas as a Low-Carbon Energy Source

Analysis of the Hydrogeological Conditions Affecting Fault Response to Nearby Hydraulic Fracturing

Analysis of the Hydrogeological Conditions Affecting Fault Response to Nearby Hydraulic Fracturing

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