Prediction of Pressure Increase during Waste Water Injection to Prevent Seismic Events

Lu Jin, Andrew K. Wojtanowicz and Jun Ge
Additional contact information
Lu Jin: Craft & Hawkins Department of Petroleum Engineering, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA
Andrew K. Wojtanowicz: Craft & Hawkins Department of Petroleum Engineering, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA
Jun Ge: Bureau of Economic Geology, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA

Energies, 2022, vol. 15, issue 6, 1-22

Abstract: A considerable increase of seismicity has occurred in the USA in the last decade (2009–2020) with an annual average of 345 M3+ earthquakes. Numerous field cases have shown that excessive well pressure due to a high injection rate may have triggered seismic events. This study defines conditions for inducing a seismic event by excessive injection in the well’s pressure that may cause geomechanical damage to the rock. Introduced here is an analytical model and method for predicting pressure increase during injection of produced water contaminated with oil. The model calculates time-dependent advancement of the captured oil saturation causing the well’s injectivity damage and pressure increase. Critical conditions for a seismic event are set by defining rock failure when well pressure exceeds the fracturing pressure of the wellbore or when the increased pore pressure reduces the effective normal stress at the “weak” interface inside the rock, computed with a geomechanical model. This concept is demonstrated in three field case studies using data from geological formations in areas of petroleum operations. The results confirm field observations of the initial rapid increase of oil invasion and injection pressure that could only be controlled by reducing the rate of injection to assure continuing long-time operation.

Keywords: injection wells; induced seismicity; produced water injection; injection pressure model; rock slippage diagram (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/6/2101/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/6/2101/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:15:y:2022:i:6:p:2101-:d:770297

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().