Canada’s natural gas producers on Thursday threw their support behind an indepth study by the British Columbia (BC) Oil and Gas Commission (OGC) on “observed induced seismic activity” in the Horn River Basin, which concluded that operators should conduct more monitoring and data collection to ensure continued community safety.

“Seismicity associated with industrial activities is of concern to the public,” said Canadian Association of Petroleum Producer (CAPP) President Dave Collyer. “Natural gas companies played a key role in providing the OGC with data to complete this study, we fully support its conclusions and we are in the process of finalizing operator guidelines and increasing financial support for more seismic monitoring in the region.

“Continuing our record of no harm to people or structures is paramount, as is supporting geoscience that can assure landowners and the public hydraulic fracturing can and will continue safely.”

Minor seismic events (2 to 3.8 magnitude) and micro-seismic events (less than 2 magnitude) were recorded in the Horn River play between April 2009 and December 2011 by government and industry seismic sensors. Micro-seismic activity also has been documented at several unconventional drilling sites in the United States.

In the Barnett Shale minor earthquakes have been linked to injection wells (see Shale Daily, Aug. 8). A dozen small earthquakes in northeastern Ohio last year also may have been triggered by an injection well (see Shale Daily, July 13; March 12). Arkansas regulators last year banned wastewater disposal wells in part of the Fayetteville Shale following quake activity (see Shale Daily, July 29, 2011).

“More than 8,000 high-volume hydraulic fracturing completions have been performed in BC,” said the CAPP. “The BC Oil and Gas Commission study concluded a total of 272 seismic events recorded were ’caused by fluid injection during hydraulic fracturing in proximity to pre-existing faults’ and noted that ‘none of the events caused any injury, property damage or posed any risk to public safety or the environment.”

Canadian officials last year launched two separate studies on the impact of fracking (see Shale Daily, Sept. 27, 2011). CAPP, which represents large and small gas and oil operators, followed early this year by announcing voluntary guiding principles and practices for fracking (see Shale Daily, Feb. 1).

Additional industry guidelines establishing monitoring protocols and practices to mitigate induced seismicity are being finalized by the CAPP, and should be published in the coming weeks, said Collyer. Industry funding of additional seismic monitoring in the region also is being finalized in cooperation with Geoscience BC.

“The natural gas industry has operated safely for many decades in Western Canada, and we will always avail ourselves of new scientific information, seek consistent application of best practices, including those that reduce and control seismicity, and encourage transparent performance reporting,” he said.