Even through the market turmoil of the past couple of years, the Permian has been a production powerhouse, lately churning out an average of nearly 5 MMb/d of crude oil and 14 Bcf/d of natural gas. But is the Permian on shaky ground? Well, sort of. Distinct areas within both the Midland and Delaware basins in West Texas have experienced an increasing number of higher-magnitude earthquakes that have been linked to the saltwater disposal (SWD) wells that E&Ps use to get rid of the massive volumes of “produced water” their oil and gas operations generate. As a result, regulators have been ordering some of these disposal wells to be shut down and directing producers and midstreamers to develop “seismic response action plans” aimed at reducing the frequency and severity of quakes. In today’s RBN blog, we look at what has been happening on the earthquake front in West Texas and how E&Ps can deal with it.
Canadian crude output is rising, requiring new export routes. As traditional pathways face constraints, the U.S. Rockies—especially the Guernsey, WY hub—are emerging as key corridors for moving Canadian heavy crude to downstream markets, including the Gulf Coast.
We’ve seen this movie before, right? Through the first half of the 2010s, Oklahoma, home of the SCOOP/STACK production area, experienced a sharp increase in the frequency and magnitude of earthquakes — there were 585 tremors with a magnitude of 3.0 or greater in 2014 and 887 in 2015, compared to an average of only three per year in the 2000-09 period (see Figure 1). The trend was soon attributed to the injection of massive volumes of produced water from oil and gas production into deep SWD wells in specific geologic formations, especially the Arbuckle, the deepest sedimentary layer in the Sooner State. Oklahoma regulators stepped in, shutting down a number of SWD wells and establishing (and later updating) protocols for the use of existing and planned wells. The frequency of earthquakes has plummeted — fewer than 30 tremors of 3.0 or higher magnitude were recorded in 2021, and the state’s first quake of 2022 happened on January 31 (a 4.5!). The seismicity problem, while not fully resolved, is being carefully monitored and managed with only limited impact on oil and gas operations.
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About the song
“I Feel the Earth Move” was written by Carole King and appears as the first song on side one of Carole King’s second studio album, Tapestry. Released in April 1971 as one half of the double-A-sided single backed with “It’s Too Late,” the song went to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart. Personnel on the record were: Carole King (vocals, keyboards), Danny Kootch (guitar), Charles Larkey (bass), and Joel O'Brien (drums).
Tapestry was recorded during January 1971 at A&M Studios in Hollywood, with Lou Adler producing. Released in February 1971, the album went to #1 on the Billboard 200 Albums chart, has been certified 13x Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, and has sold over 25 million copies worldwide. The LP received four Grammy Awards in 1972, including Album of the Year. Several artists have covered songs from Tapestry, including James Taylor, Aretha Franklin, and Barbra Streisand. An interesting side note is the album cover, shot by photographer Jim McCrary, which was taken at a windowsill in King’s home in the Laurel Canyon neighborhood in the Hollywood Hills. It featured King holding a tapestry she had created, with her cat Telemachus sitting at her feet. Three singles were released from the LP.
Carole King (Carol Joan Klein) is an American singer, songwriter, and musician. Her career started in 1958 as a staff songwriter at the Brill Building (the center of the music industry at the time) in New York City. She has written or co-written 118 hits that made it to the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart and has released 17 studio albums, four live albums, seven compilation albums, one soundtrack album, and 34 singles. King has won five Grammy Awards, received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and is twice a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, once as songwriter and once as a solo artist. She is also a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame and has received a Kennedy Center Honor and a Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. King continues to write, record, and perform.
Comments
If only there were some way to treat that water and generate an additional revenue stream doing it? If only... https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsenergylett.9b00779
In reply to If only... by Warren Wilczewski
Hi Warren,
I asked a guy who knows about these thinks and his response was:
1.) produced waters generally haven’t shown the PPM levels of lithium to make extraction worthwhile
2.) hydrocarbons are not compatible with existing processes for Direct Lithium Extraction “DLE” and electrolytic refining- and are expensive and challenging to remove completely (including soluble components)
3.) lithium is a revenue source in theory (challenged in practice as noted above) but doesn’t do anything to help the “waste problem” that produced water presents.