American Oil and Gas Reporter - August 2015 - 134

ConventionSection: Eastern Kansas Oil & Gas Association

Operators Studying Seismic Situation
CHANUTE, KS.-In early July, the
Oklahoma Supreme Court agreed to allow
a resident of Prague, Ok., to file lawsuits
against two companies operating disposal
wells in the state. She claims a link between
their activities and her injuries in the earthquakes of Nov. 5, 2011, media reports indicate. A state report says six houses were
destroyed and 172 damaged when three
earthquakes of magnitude 5.0 hit the town,
which is east of Oklahoma City.
David Bleakley, chairman of the Eastern Kansas Oil & Gas Association's
Rules and Regulations Committee, says
one result of the Oklahoma lawsuit is a
possible increase in the number of frivolous lawsuits for damages people attribute
to induced seismic events.
Bleakley, executive vice president
with Colt Energy in Mission, Ks., predicts
the prospective lawsuits will hinge on
attempts to prove conjecture that water
injection deep below the surface have
led to seismic activity.

Kansas has taken a mostly reasonable
approach to the seismic issue, EKOGA
President Steve Stanfield assesses.
In March, the Kansas Corporation
Commission ordered a reduction in saltwater injections into the Arbuckle formation in parts of Harper and Sumner
counties. According to the agency, its
order covers five areas of seismic concern
identified by the Kansas Geological Survey, and requires disposal well operators
in those areas to gradually decrease their
injections to 8,000 barrels a day. The
state also agreed to pay for seismic monitoring stations across Kansas.
Bleakley reports seeing little evidence
Kansas legislators are interested in drafting
new seismic regulations, speculating that
lawmakers may be waiting to see if the
KCC's actions are sufficient and if the
state monitoring system can determine
any connection between industry activity
and the seismic events.
According to Stanfield, president of

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134 THE AMERICAN OIL & GAS REPORTER

Consolidated Oil Well Services LLC in
Chanute, the legislators' decision that the
state general fund should pay to install
and run the seismic monitoring system is
a positive sign. "Since no evidence conclusively demonstrates that any seismic
activity is directly associated with oil and
gas operations, it is inappropriate that industry funds pay for that system," he
says.

Impacts On Operations
The state's disposal well order represents a regulatory challenge for a few
operators, but all Kansas operators continue to suffer from poor market conditions
as well, Stanfield assesses.
"Any improvement in pricing, or at
least a more stable pricing, would be
helpful," he says. "My company is doing
what all companies have to do, which is
hunker down and weather the storm.
There are going to be more concerns
about the state of the industry going into
the September annual meeting than last
year, when we were very optimistic and
upbeat. But there are some encouraging
regulatory and legislative developments."
Resolving public concerns about seismic events in Kansas is a major undertaking for the KCC's Oil & Gas Conservation Division.
However, Bleakley points out, responsible KCC oversight is important for the
state's oil and gas industry. Bleakley notes
newspapers in Kansas City and Topeka,
Ks., have printed several anecdotal, nonfactual comments about seismic events
from anti-development groups.
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Coming In September

Horizontal well placement is critical
to success in unconventional resources
plays. Part III of the Horizontal Well
Operations series examines how a
small independent is using advanced 3D seismic data acquired in an urban
survey to plan Niobrara well geometries, precisely land lateral sections,
navigate around geologic faults, significantly reduce drilling costs and improve resource management. Reports
also present field trial results of new
completion-based chemical stimulation technology.

American Oil and Gas Reporter - August 2015

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