Four wastewater wells tied to Oklahoma quake surge, study says

Four wastewater wells used in oil and natural gas drilling may be responsible for triggering 20% of all earthquakes in the central and eastern U.S. from 2008 to 2013, according to a study published in the journal Science.

The wells are used to dispose of high volumes of wastewater released from underground rocks when they are fractured using modern oil-drilling techniques. The four wells are likely responsible for a dramatic rise in earthquakes near Oklahoma City since 2009, according to the research.

Oklahoma has had more earthquakes than California so far this year, making it the most seismically active state in the continental U.S. and raising suspicions that drilling activity is influencing a surge in temblors there. The state had 238 earthquakes with a magnitude 3.0 or greater through June, more than double the number in California, which has historically ranked second in earthquakes behind Alaska.

Scientists studied wastewater-injection volumes, geologic information and data from earthquake sensors to show that fluids pumped into the wells increased underground pressures and spread them. The area of elevated underground pressure grew in a way that overlapped with a “migrating front” of earthquakes centered near Oklahoma City.

The data showed that water pumped into wastewater wells can increase and affect underground pressures as far away as 35 km (22 miles), potentially triggering earthquakes at faults that would have previously been considered too distant.

Researchers from Cornell University, University of Colorado, Columbia University, and the U.S. Geological Survey collaborated on the study.

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Fugro strengthens Africa presence with Geofor buy

Fugro has completed the acquisition of the Geofor Group based in Libreville (Gabon), Douala (Cameroon), Pointe Noire (Republic of Congo) and São Tomé City (São Tomé) to strengthen its presence in the Central Africa region and the French speaking African countries. In addition to its longer established offices, Geofor has significant working experience in Niger, Chad and Equatorial Guinea.

Geofor is an onshore/nearshore geotechnical company, which delivers drilling services and has highly specialized engineers and geologists in the fields of geotechnical consulting, hydrology, and land survey.

The company was established in 1989 and has over 25 years of experience working in most countries in Africa. The client base includes major oil and gas companies and key mining clients. In addition, Geofor is active in infrastructure and water supply projects.

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Former NATO commander returns to Balkans hunting for Albanian oil

Fifteen years after Wesley Clark led NATO’s bombing campaign against Serbia, the retired U.S. general is back in the Balkans - looking for oil.

Clark, who was also a presidential candidate in 2004, is a director of two Canadian explorers working in Albania, Bankers Petroleum Ltd. and Petromanas Energy Inc. They’re using modern drilling techniques to revive production in one of Europe’s poorest countries, where oil was first produced in the 1920s.

“Albania has an enormous economic significance for Europe as it has a robust supply of oil, and it should be a strong component of European energy policy,” Clark said in a telephone interview.

Oil exploration is part of Albania’s strategy to repair the damage of four decades of economic isolation under the communist regime of Enver Hoxha, who built more than 700,000 concrete military bunkers before he died in 1985. Albania’s economy, where per capita income remains the lowest in Europe after Bosnia, Ukraine and Moldova, has almost doubled in size in the last decade, according to the World Bank.

Clark, who’s been on Bankers’s board since 2008 and became a Petromanas Energy director last year, was NATO’s supreme allied commander in Europe when the alliance’s bombing campaign forced Serbia to withdraw from Kosovo, where ethnic Albanians make up the majority of the population.

Horizontal Drilling

Bankers, based in Calgary, is using horizontal drilling and water flooding to revive Patos-Marinza, first discovered in 1928 and once Europe’s largest producers. Output, which had dwindled to almost nothing in 2004, is now 20,000 bpd and Bankers plans to drill 170 wells a year to boost production to almost 50,000 bpd by 2020.

“Bankers is a lower risk investment alternative that provides predictable and growing production on a significant reserves and resource base,” Darren Engels, an analyst at FirstEnergy who rates the company a buy, said this month.

Petromanas Energy, also based in Calgary, is a partner with Europe’s largest oil company, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, to hunt for new oil fields in Albania, where the geology is similar to southern Italy, home to some of Europe’s largest onshore fields.

Two wells drilled by the companies have found about 375 MMbbl of oil, according to Petromanas, which holds a 25% stake in the venture. A third, called Molisht-1 is being drilled at the moment.

“What’s happening in Albania is representative of the fact that if price of oil stands at $100 a barrel, people are looking at new opportunities,” Clark said. “If the price stays there, it has changed the geography of oil; it is happening in Albania, it is happening elsewhere in Europe.”

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Encana sells Bighorn gas assets to Apollo as part of shift to oil production

Encana, Canada’s largest natural gas producer, is selling its Bighorn assets in Alberta to Apollo Global Management for about $1.8 billion as the company continues its shift into oil production.

The sale includes about 360,000 acres along with interests in pipelines, facilities and service arrangements. Total net proved reserves at the end of 2013 were approximately 1.1 Tcfe, about 75% of which is natural gas.

Encana has been selling gas fields and buying oil fields to boost profit by producing the more valuable fuel. It has sold or agreed to sell $4.1 billion of assets this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Earlier this month, Encana paid $3.1 billion for Freeport-McMoRan assets in the Eagle Ford Basin in Texas, doubling its crude output.

“Bighorn is a high quality asset that has not been receiving significant investment in 2014,” Encana Chief Executive Office Doug Suttles said in the statement. “It should serve as an excellent foundational asset for Jupiter Resources.”

Apollo’s Jupiter Resources, based in Calgary, is a portfolio investment of funds managed by affiliates of the New York-based private-equity firm, which describes itself as “contrarian.”

Liquids-Rich Gas

“We are very excited about the opportunity to actively develop the Bighorn assets, one of North America’s premier liquids-rich natural gas projects,” Simon Bregazzi, CEO of Jupiter Resources, said in a separate statement.

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INPEX unloads first modules for Ichthys LNG Project processing facilities

The INPEX-operated Ichthys LNG Project is preparing for the next phase of its onshore construction effort, following the unloading of its first large pre-fabricated modules on June 29. The modules will be used to construct the Project’s LNG processing facilities at Bladin Point near Darwin, Australia.

Ichthys LNG Project Managing Director Louis Bon said the safe arrival of the first of more than 200 modules was an important milestone for the Project and marked the next phase for its onshore construction effort.

“Much of the work we have been doing to transform Bladin Point has been leading up to this event -- we have been setting the foundations to prepare for their arrival and installation at site,” he said

A modularized approach to construction is now common in Australia. For the Ichthys LNG Project, this approach involved having components of its onshore facilities assembled in modules at fabrication yards and tested before transporting them to site.

Designing and constructing modules in this way was a key part of delivering the global project on schedule and on budget, Bon said.

“The Ichthys LNG Project’s onshore facilities were designed so that some elements would be modularized while others could be stick-built on site in Darwin,” Bon added.

The Ichthys LNG Project’s pre-fabricated modules are being built at four yards in China, the Philippines and Thailand. Over the next 18 months, about 60 module shipments are scheduled to arrive in Darwin. The largest modules can weigh more than 6,000 tonnes.

Transported on large, custom-made marine vessels, module shipments will travel past Darwin on the way to the Project’s module offloading facility (MOF) at Bladin Point. The MOF supports the offloading of the large modules and oversized equipment that is too large to be transported to site by road.

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