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Production-induced Fault Reactivation and Seismicity in The Netherlands - From Quick Scan to 3D Geomechanical Modelling
- Publisher: European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers
- Source: Conference Proceedings, 77th EAGE Conference and Exhibition - Workshops, Jun 2015, Volume 2015, p.1 - 5
Abstract
Recent induced seismic events in the giant Groningen gas field have raised concern on the safety of gas production and the risk of induced seismicity in the Groningen gas field in The Netherlands. Statistical analysis of past seismic events in the Groningen Field reveals that seismicity is non-stationary and seismicity rates are increasing, which leads to the conclusion that the maximum possible magnitude of seismic events, related to gas depletion, may be significantly higher than estimated before on the basis of statistics of past seismic events alone. The non-stationarity of seismicity may have implications for the seismic hazard of the small gas fields in The Netherlands as well.Formerly the maximum magnitude for these small onshore fields was estimated via the frequency magnitude distribution of the combined seismicity for all these fields, which resulted in an estimate of ML 3.9 for the maximum magnitude. However, as seismicity is non-stationary, only a small fraction of the gas fields is seismically active and the number of seismic events associated with them is generally small, past seismicity and related statistics cannot be used very well to study the future response of those fields and implications for fields with no recorded seismicity are unclear. In this presentation we show methods to assess the seismicity potential of these fields, which are based on techniques other than statistical analysis of past seismicity alone.