Earth Quake 2016

[sauerkraut]

I'm surprised there is no discussion about the big quake on this forum- now raised from a 5.6 to a 5.8. Some like to blame fracking but I wonder about that, could that just be anti-drilling people who found a home?  The quake was huge it rattled  buildings in Dallas to Omaha, the quake was felt in Indianapolis, seems hardly something that a local fault line could produce. They say the 2011 quake was more localized than this one.

[sauerkraut]

There was a loud crash-like sound 2 seconds before the quake hit. I wondered what made that crash sound, I always thought quakes made a rumbling sound. The crash sounded a bit like a trash truck dropping a dumpster on the ground but with more of a "rolling" sound to it. A woman on the news said it sounded like a truck crashed into her house. I guess the crash sound was some sort of quake  primary pressure wave, then the secondary wave hit. It was the weirdest thing. They said on the local news that you should stay inside your house during a quake, but I always understood your supposed to go outside and get away from buildings during a quake. In California they say if your caught  indoors during a quake to get under a door frame, otherwise get outside and away from structures that may fall. Cement/brick/block building are the worst places to be during a quake.

[heironymouspasparagus]

I'm surprised there is no discussion about the big quake on this forum- now raised from a 5.6 to a 5.8. Some like to blame fracking but I wonder about that, could that just be anti-drilling people who found a home? 

Wonder away...!  It's another one of those mysteries of life that Oklahoma in general will not likely understand or belief... kinda like climate change.

In answer to your rhetorical question, no, it isn't just the anti-drilling people.  It's realistic engineers/scientists who actually understand the cause and effect of this type seismic occurrence.  Even Mary Failin' has at least gotten some little glimmer of reality - even she thinks injection wells should be at least be scaled back, hence her calls to slow injection well use.

[godboko71]

Some like to blame fracking but I wonder about that, could that just be anti-drilling people who found a home?

While some may misuse the term fracking for the disposal of wastewater in injection wells, no means to blame fracking directly for most of the earthquakes. That said the practice of deep injection wells for wastewater disposal is a proven cause of most qaukes in Oklahoma.  Most are not anti-drill however we are anti injection well for the disposal of wastewater. There is ample room in the profit margins of most wells to treat the water.

I'm surprised there is no discussion about the big quake on this forum.

Most on this forum live in Tulsa and while the shaking was the biggest in years its so common place we felt no reason to mention it. Also at 7:02 AM many people where either asleep or already driving to work so many may not have noticed it.

(Yeah I know don't feed the trolls but whatever )

[Conan71]

If injection wells were banned, producers would have to finally step up and pay for other disposal methods like evaporation or processing wastewater with polymer and filters like many industries do.  It would raise the price of oil and associated derivatives, but that's a cost consumers have to be willing to bear if it means no more serious earthquakes.

[Breadburner]

Natural seismic event.....

[sauerkraut]

The quake was felt in Indianapolis, it swayed skyscrapers in Dallas. This it was a major event on a fault line- Does is not seem like something that squirting water into the ground can cause. Perhaps the quake was caused by global warming. Everything else is caused by global warming so why not quakes?

[Conan71]

The quake was felt in Indianapolis, it swayed skyscrapers in Dallas. This it was a major event on a fault line- Does is not seem like something that squirting water into the ground can cause. Perhaps the quake was caused by global warming. Everything else is caused by global warming so why not quakes?

Is your earth flat?!?!

It's not "squirting" water, it goes in at a very high pressure. It's a simple matter of physics:  if you inject water under pressure it will displace either air or other solid or liquid matter.  Unlike the theory of man-made global warming, the scientific theory on injection wells causing quakes is not very controversial and is quite solid.

[AquaMan]

Natural seismic event.....

Yeah....sorta. I mean, the faults were already there. We just lubricated them.  Forest fires are naturally occurring as well, yet sometimes they're human inspired.

[Ed W]

Is your earth flat?!?!

It's not "squirting" water, it goes in at a very high pressure. It's a simple matter of physics:  if you inject water under pressure it will displace either air or other solid or liquid matter.  Unlike the theory of man-made global warming, the scientific theory on injection wells causing quakes is not very controversial and is quite solid.

Don't be too hard on him. He has one of the finest minds of the twelfth century. It's in a jar under his bed.

[Weatherdemon]

The reason injection wells are needed in OK is that our O/G wells produce crap tons of salt water but, in most cases, it's not affordable to reinject at the well site... which I think is the best way to handle it.
Instead, it's picked up by tanker trucks and hauled to specific injection well sites.
And, we also take other states salt water waste.

[Conan71]

The reason injection wells are needed in OK is that our O/G wells produce crap tons of salt water but, in most cases, it's not affordable to reinject at the well site... which I think is the best way to handle it.
Instead, it's picked up by tanker trucks and hauled to specific injection well sites.
And, we also take other states salt water waste.

It's not a necessity, it's simply the cheapest method of dealing with the salt water.  There's desalination units and fired evaporation is always an option.  With natural gas at such low prices evaporation could make sense.

[heironymouspasparagus]

It's not a necessity, it's simply the cheapest method of dealing with the salt water.  There's desalination units and fired evaporation is always an option.  With natural gas at such low prices evaporation could make sense.

If the oil/gas cannot be produced bearing the actual cost of that production, then it should not be produced.  It's like a store saying we can't be successful in business without having free labor, so we should be allowed to pay much less, or nothing to our employees...!

And there is PLENTY of margin in the price of a barrel of oil for proper disposal of saltwater.

[Conan71]

If the oil/gas cannot be produced bearing the actual cost of that production, then it should not be produced.  It's like a store saying we can't be successful in business without having free labor, so we should be allowed to pay much less, or nothing to our employees...!

And there is PLENTY of margin in the price of a barrel of oil for proper disposal of saltwater.

Depends, if you are pumping out of an old vertical well that was drilled 25-30 years ago, it's likely quite profitable at the current prices.

If you just completed a horizontal drill and fracked it, the numbers might not be so great if you were forced to evaporate the salt water.

[heironymouspasparagus]

Depends, if you are pumping out of an old vertical well that was drilled 25-30 years ago, it's likely quite profitable at the current prices.

If you just completed a horizontal drill and fracked it, the numbers might not be so great if you were forced to evaporate the salt water.

Then you shouldn't have speculated so recklessly, if you weren't prepared to accept the consequences.  (Not personal 'you', but the royal 'you'...people who participated.)  Why is it "personal responsibility" is such a huge catch phrase for individuals who get caught between a rock and a hard place through no fault of their own, other than wrong place/right time - but doesn't exist for corporate and private entities that make exceptionally bad business decisions and then expect recompense, acceptance, and/or forgiveness of 'sins'??

The latest 'speculative' wells were just another example of the 'jump on the bandwagon, get rich quick' scheming we see repeatedly in the industry.  Remember the 80's?  What possible justification could one have in this day and age for being a "wildcatter" ??  Spending hundreds of thousands or more on such massively speculative capitalistic voyeurism...well, there is always a bucket of suckers around who think they are gonna win the 'lottery'.  Just because they don't understand the industry, the economics, or politics of oil does not mean they should be exempt from the consequences of their ignorance.  They want us to take the same historical approach as the past that gave us thousands of abandoned oil/gas wells sites that are unlikely to ever be cleaned up (hint: OERB is enjoying the propaganda value of talking about it, but the reality is there is still a 10 year waiting list.  Even after 10 years!)  Or places like Picher.  Or Love Canal.

One of the consequences is that if you are gonna make a huge, gawd-awful mess, you should have to clean it up.  Yeah, that includes us the consumer - if we wanna drive our cars, then we are gonna have to pay a couple extra cents per gallon to fill the things up!  Tough s*** - get over it - it's the price you gotta pay to drive your Belchfire 5000!  But it starts at the well head!!