Mohacsy's Safe Portfolio Member Forum

[Elroy Jetson]

Oklahoma and Texas have experienced earthquakes from lax regulation of brine disposal at shallow depths, not hydraulic fracture of deep production zones.

Oil wells pump out oil, gas and water, often very salty water as these zones used to be ancient oceans. Farmers buy water but no one wants salty brine. In the early days of oil and gas production they produced shallow deposits of oil and gas and the ground slowly subsided over the decades as the resource was depleted, often by 10 feet.

Deep production wells are quite costly to drill and the oil friendly regulators in Oklahoma and Texas have allowed oil producers to inject this waste brine into these shallow depleted oil and gas zones using existing or new shallow wells. The problem with this "cheap solution" is the subsidence of decades is quickly reversed, causing earthquakes, and the shallow layers they've been pumping the brine into are too close to drinking water resources. Oklahoma and Texas have now realized they made a mistake, so have limited where and how much brine can be reinjected.

California and other states require brine injection in deeper existing brine aquifers.

Hydraulic fracturing is temporary and very deep. Water mixed with guar gum (the stuff used to thicken some puddings) along with sand into production zones typically a mile deep. After weeks of pumping, an acid is pumped in and the guar gum loses its thickness - much like the acid and enzymes from fresh pineapple prevents a pudding from thickening. Oil and gas production then continues extracting from this depth at an increased flow rate.


Since these subsidence and earthquake problems occur with shallow strata, subsidence and earth movement is usually caused by farmers and towns over-producing ground water.

A month ago I post about the rice growing town of Maxwell in Northern California - http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=128831657

Maxwell pumped out so much ground water for their rice that their town slowly subsided 60 feet over decades, essentially becoming a natural lake. So like New Orleans they had to use dikes and pumps to keep their town dry. Recent rains dumped water faster than their pumps could remove it and much of the town flooded.

Satellites show the California drought caused the entire state to subside as the ground held less water, triggering small earthquakes, and the rains will cause more small earthquakes as the subsidence reverses.