Seismic Activity Recorded in Texas Shale Patch

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Written by Daniel Graeber for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--A cluster of seismic activity in the shale patch in western Texas is raising questions about the use of wastewater in the upstream oil and gas sector in the state.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) recorded a handful of tremors west of Midland, Texas, this week. The largest was a magnitude 5 quake about 30 miles northwest of Toyah, near the border with New Mexico.

That's home to the Delaware and Wolfcamp basins, located within the broader Permian shale patch.

Tremors in the shale patch are a concern for drillers and regulators alike. The Texas Railroad Commission (RRC), which governs the state's oil and gas sector, determined that the injection of oil and gas wastewater was likely behind the seismic activity. It suspended operations in the so-called Northern-Culberson Reeves Seismic Response Area, situated in the western Permian basin, effective January 14.

Click on the image at right for a map showing the location of the Northern-Culberson Reeves Seismic Response Area.

The Permian is the largest inland crude oil producer, and the second-largest gas producer, in the continental United States. The estimated 6.6 million barrels of oil expected per day from the Permian represents about half of the total U.S. production.

A December report from the Houston Chronicle, which came after a magnitude 5 quake in the Permian, found seismic activity was linked to Chevron Corporation's (NYSE:CVX) (Houston, Texas) operations in the region. Its operations were suspended by the RRC under the latest order. The Chronicle added that many operators had already curtailed wastewater injections in the seismic response area, before the latest cluster of activity.

The RRC had reacted as early as 2022, by stating the plan for the Northern Culberson-Reeves Seismic Response Area was to reduce the intensity and frequency of earthquakes greater than a magnitude 3.5 "no later than Dec. 31, 2023" by monitoring injection-induced seismicity. It's doing so by limiting daily injection volumes.

This issue is not exclusive to Texas, which has experienced tremors associated with shale practices for years. Oklahoma during the 2010s experienced weekly earthquakes that were associated with wastewater in the Anadarko shale patch. Then-Governor Mary Fallin had put $1.4 million in funding on the table to study the issue after the state experienced more than 900 small tremors in 2015.

Several studies show that wastewater injections, and not the process of hydraulic fracturing itself, are behind seismic activity in shale. The USGS had already found the disposal of wastewater back into the ground was the primary reason for outbreaks in the shale-rich states.

Seismic activity has also been linked to operations in Canada, China and even Morocco.

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