Earthquakes such as the one that forced a wastewater disposal well in Youngstown, OH, to be closed at the beginning of the year can be avoided if oil, natural gas and service companies are more knowledgeable of the local and regional geology, according to an energy expert.

“The primary way to avoid these things is to understand the local regional geology,” Julio Friedmann, chief energy technologist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, told NGI. “If there are pre-existing ancient faults close to your injection site, then the risk of induced earthquakes goes up.”

Friedmann, who served as keynote speaker at the United States Energy Association’s (USEA) “Future of Fracking Technologies” conference in Washington, DC, on Thursday, emphasized that hydraulic fracturing (fracking) doesn’t typically lead to large earthquakes, but injection wells could potentially induce small ones, like the 4.0-magnitude temblor that hit Ohio on Dec. 31.

“An induced earthquake of magnitude 4.0 is large, but on the earthquake magnitude scale it’s tiny,” Friedmann said. “It feels kind of like a truck driving by in most places. In Ohio it was stronger because you have an old and strong crust there, but the fact is 4.0 is not a big earthquake and typically does not lead to infrastructure damage.”

At issue is a wastewater well owned by Youngstown-based D&L Energy Inc., which state regulators allege is responsible for a series of seismic events that began in March 2011 and ended on New Year’s Eve. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) ordered Northstar Disposal Services LLC, the well’s operator, to halt operations at the well on Jan. 1 (see NGI, Jan. 9).

“We’ve been doing wastewater injection in this country for years and typically do not have those kinds of earthquakes,” Friedmann said. “This particular case was one in which a little foresight may have prevented that kind of an event. There are deep faults [in Ohio] that are well understood and mapped. Knowing the presence and the orientation of those faults can help oil and gas companies and service companies avoid these kinds of earthquakes.”

Friedmann lauded oil and gas companies for the increasing use of recycling and improvements in cleaning and processing, thereby reducing the amount of fracking fluid generated from their operations. “Those are good steps to start with, but ultimately one should expect to require large volumes of water to be disposed of,” Friedmann said. “The best way to do that is through deep injection.”

Asked if he thought the seismic activity would subside in Youngstown, Friedmann said, “I’m sure it already has. [But] if they continue to inject the volumes of water at the same rate, they can expect more trouble. If they were to change location or reduce the volume and rate of injection, then the chance of earthquakes would go down a lot.”

Friedmann said he thought the industry would take the necessary steps in responding to events such as the Youngstown quakes, which received significant media attention. “I think the companies involved are fully aware now of these issues and I’m sure are coming up with reasonable measures [to solve them],” Friedmann said.

D&L could not be reached for comment Friday but it said shortly after the disposal well’s shutdown that it would pay for a study to determine the cause of the seismic activity (see NGI, Jan. 16). Last year regulators in Arkansas established a moratorium on wastewater disposal wells in an area of the Fayetteville Shale after similar quake activity was reported there (see NGI, Aug. 1, 2011; March 21, 2011).

The ODNR said quake activity began in the Youngstown area last March. Four seismometers operated by Columbia University recorded a 2.7-magnitude earthquake on Dec. 24 in addition to the Dec. 31 quake. The agency said the two quakes were 330 feet apart and occurred at a similar depth, about 12,000 feet.

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