I hope they move fast. The split in the foundation of the cottage is now 3" wide at the corner and it leads to the crawlspace opening on the other end. It's just there floating around in the soil, now. The ceiling in the bedroom is about to fall in. That was weak, to begin. Cracks everywhere. There's really no way of refinishing all the sheetrock cracks (or even the foundation) if the quakes continue.

When 'they' initially admitted to injection wells causing quakes, they were using a logical fallacy to deter from the reality that the entire oil drilling and the hydraulic fracturing as the real source of the quakes. A recent geologist confirms it's the overall industry practice that is causing man-made quakes, not just the injection wells.

I truly hope he is wrong. That means the quakes won't cease entirely. In addition, the main source of injection wells in this area is Marjo Co. They're suing OCC over the mess. They say they want a compromise.

blek

bon

Thank you, Amy. <3

industry geologist here. The chance that drilling and fracking is causing the quakes is unlikely. In the area being drilled, wells are targeted 1-2 miles into the subsurface. Typically the earthquakes are occurring at depths of 3+ miles down. So while it's possible that the removal of fluid creates some kind of pressure void and allows subsurface movement, it seems highly unlikely since the recovery rate is something like 8% of what's down there. As far as the disposals go, that seems more likely to me but still difficult to wrap your brain around. In some cases, particularly nearer the metro it's plausible since somebody got the bright idea to drill a disposal on an active fault zone due to the enhanced capacity. But for the remainder of the disposals, they are pushing water down about 2.5 miles into a sealed resevoir, but the argument is that it's finding it's way down fractures wide enough to allow it to travel miles further into the subsurface without any kind of obstruction. The quakes are happening on major and "active" (though not as much until recently) fault lines so the potential has always been there. I don't like my house shaking anymore than the rest of you, and something is clearly causing it. It will be interesting to see how the restrictions change seismicity in the area. I would imagine it will probably continue for a long time but I could be wrong.

Not knowing is the worst part. At times I'm apt to conclude they know a lot more than they're willing to admit and I don't mean the geologists. Anyone in their right mind can add when patterns exist. A driver spending a great deal of time behind a wheel is going to know its quirks. I'm certain they've seen patterns following activities though the various fault lines may have their own personalities.

When one takes a detached view, the conclusion is partial destruction of property in the area and complete destruction of land values in the long run. The land is almost worthless, as is. I have friends elsewhere who could pay my mortgage with their credit card and never feel it. I can only imagine how a continuance would plague the area ten years from now. Add to this the probabilities of air and soil contamination which occurs from the industry. I don't know what those odds are, I'm just saying there is an odd. These imaginings are worst case scenario, of course, where the result would be barren ghost town. The most plausible financial risk averse for land and homeowners is to move. When i think of it in those terms, it's deplorable that we might let it come to that.

jmichigan , Oklahoma wells have always produced a lot of saltwater, all across the state since oil was discovered here over 100 yrs ago. And its been disposed of in SWD wells or used in waterflooding.

There were fields in the state, that contained so much SW , they were never economical to produce. The cost of SW disposal was too high. Until the last run up in oil prices over the past 10 years , or so.

The higher prices , coupled with efficiencies in drilling wells that make drilling SWD wells very cheap , have now made these formations that contain mostly SW, economical. They're now producing wells that make 10 bbls of SW for every bbl of oil. They are drilling one SWD well for every 5 oil wells.

They've also developed new techniques, like dewatering, where they run two strings of tubing in the same well bore, they bring oil and SW up in one string, then separate the SW , then return the SW to adifferent formation below the producing formation. Just as its called, they are removing the SW from a formation, effectively displacing millions of gallons of SW.

All this new activity has meant they are now disposing of SW in huge volumes. And all credible geologists who've studied this, those who are not pushing an anti-fossil fuel agenda, agree that this is the cause of the quakes.

The wells producing this SW, can be hydraulic fractured, or may not be hydraulic fraced , a study done by the Univ of Tulsa , funded by the DOE in 2002, said they found conventional vertical wells produced as well if not better, then modern horizontally drilled/hyd fraced wells.

But there's people in this state, who will never accept the facts or the real explanation, and always think there's something more under the surface.

My only problem with how these quakes have been dealt with here, is that it took so long for our state govt to begin to act, they should've been on this years ago.

But really, lower oil prices are going to reduce the volumes of SW disposal , far faster than the Corp Commission. New drilling is going to come to an abrupt halt, and eventually the current producing wells are going to deplete.

Thank ya, sir.

I agree with your insight on oil production. I believe oil crash is right around the corner, in fact. Maybe $5 as some project. No matter, it's going to be a rough ride for oil and energy sectors.

its already crashed, thousands have been laid off, hundreds of thousands .... and its gonna get worse in 2016

yes. I'm not much of a speculator, but those that do are coming up with some pretty horrific scenarios including a stand-still in global energy. I only follow fundamentals and price movements. Energy isn't something I follow, but what I hear is awful.

You know they should change the ticker for crude oil from WTI to WTF lol

Bon, That is too funny. Growing up in Texas as I did, you learn that oil industry booms and busts are just part of the industry. Whenever oil goes up, the only real certainty is that eventually it comes back down.

There were a lot of people here in our area who left their regular jobs to go work in the oil fields the last few years because the pay was so lucrative. Over the last few months, a lot of them have lost those oil field jobs and now are back at the same jobs they had before, and are happy to have those jobs now. They're lucky that they were able to come back to essentially the same jobs they left (and we're happy to have them back here too). Some people in some parts of the state haven't been as lucky in finding jobs to replace their oil-related jobs.

Dawn

Well, it will impact far more than just those directly employed, I saw on KWTV News9 last week, that car sales in the OKC area are way off ...... and its gonna get worse.

It impacts everybody, home builders, real estage, state government, school teachers .... everyone benefits from a healthy oil and gas industry. Its a huge part of our economy. It was 25% of our state govt revenues.

Well, of course it does, but that is the cyclical nature of the oil industry and of the states whose economies are built upon it. I remember the oil embargo of the 1970s and the energy crisis later in that same decade. I remember how oil boomed in Texas in those years, and then everyone paid a huge price for that boom in the 1980s when we had a so-called oil glut and the money dried up. All my brother's in-laws worked for Texas oil companies in the 1970s when the oil industry was running full steam ahead and there was lots of money to be made, and partially through the 1980s until oil crashed and jobs went away in what was then referred to as "the oil glut". One by one they all gradually found careers in other fields, particularly after the big Enron disaser (most of them worked for Exxon/Enron in the good years). The crash of oil prices affected all of us there in Texas back then, just like what is occurring in OK now. It is inescapable. As long as I can remember, that's how it has been. You make the money while you can when oil is on an up cycle and you suffer when the prices cycle down and the jobs disappear. I doubt we'll ever see the oil industry operate any other way, though it would be nice if things could run on a nice even keel instead of cycling up and down like they do.

Yep, purty much that's it ..................

I'm well aware of the statistics for well production. Average oil cut in the main plays is 10%. Less so for others. Moving fluid is the name of the game with unconventional reservoirs. Oil isn't going to crash. Middle East is burning. That alone will keep prices inching up. Demand isn't going anywhere either. I agree that disposal water is a cause but it's not in every swd. It's the ones driled into major fault lines