Quake

The Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC) ordered seven wastewater disposal wells shut in, and ordered another 66 wells to curtail their disposal volumes by 25-50%, as the regulatory agency “continues its evolving response” to a pair of strong earthquakes that struck the state within the last two weeks.

Concluding there could be a tie to oil and natural gas production activity, U.S. and Oklahoma Geological Survey officials jointly reported Monday that 145 3.0-magnitude or stronger earthquakes have occurred in the state so far this year.

After studying hundreds of thousands of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) operations, the practice was determined to have caused noticeable tremors at the surface in only three cases and was “not a significant” source of earthquakes, according to researchers at UK’s Durham University.

A report published Monday by the group Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States asserts that there is a link between dozens of small earthquakes in Texas’ Barnett Shale and wastewater injection wells that support natural gas drilling.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich signed an executive order on Tuesday temporarily giving the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) additional power to regulate wastewater injection wells used by oil and natural gas drilling operations.

In an apparent bow to local opposition, a Texas company has withdrawn its proposal to build two injection wells for wastewater from oil and natural gas drilling in Mansfield, OH.

Despite strict rules governing wastewater disposal wells, enacted after a dozen small earthquakes were possibly caused by the injections, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) is on pace to receive a record number of permit applications this year for new injection wells.

The top geologists in Colorado and Oklahoma, two states with significant shale resources, say researchers with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) were hasty in suggesting that injection wells used to dispose of wastewater from oil and gas drilling are responsible for an increase in earthquakes in the Midcontinent region.

Environmental groups and supporters of the oil and gas industry have different opinions over claims by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) that an increase in earthquakes in the Midcontinent region are more than likely caused by wastewater injection well activities.