Standing in his living room, Richard Kabzems makes a dense binder filled with letters and notes of his two -year struggle to stop the Wells fraction near his home in Farmington, BC
Ovintiv, multinational oil and gas companies, announced two years ago that she would expand the gas fracing in a new place built on a hill about a kilometer from the Kabzema home in Rural Lebell. BC Energy Regulator (BCER) approved a permit.
In the last 24 months, Kabzems and his wife Sandy Burton have written six detailed letters to a gas company opposed to the project, as well as another series of E -Mailov and letters to a provincial regulator.
But drilling should start on February 9, at the first of the intended 24 wells in place.
“We are taking the risk, and they say,” Don’t worry, “Kabzems said.
In fact, he’s worried. This is because in 2024, the number of magnitude 3 or more earthquakes associated with hydraulic breakage and underground storage of its wastewater reached a record high in Montney formation, an area rich in the northeast BC and northwest Albert.
According to monitoring from the natural resources of Canada, there were 34 earthquakes in Magnituda 3 and more (M> 3.0), more than three times over 10 years in Montney.
The connection between oil and gas and induced earthquakes is well documented around the world.
Magnitude 3 openings can be felt and even cause damage, according to seismic experts, depending on where they occur. Each step in size releases 10 times more energy.
Kabzems and Burton have been felt before – from a fraction away from the new drilling place.
“He felt like the truck was hitting the side of our house, and the engine beat – this deep, low rumble – and things would change,” he said, remembering a series of earthquakes four years ago.
But Kabzems and Burton’s home insurer informed them in June 2023 that the earthquake insurance would be excluded from their policy.
Allan Chapman, a former Senior Generalian with a BC Oil and Gas Commission that analyzed the data, concluded that the frequency of significant earthquakes would only increase because the fraction is expanding in the Peaca River.
Kabzema says that the first few times he experienced an earthquake, “You didn’t know what was going on; you didn’t have experience. And again, with earthquakes, you just don’t know when he’ll show up.”
The industry recognizes the risk
Hydraulic breakage in Montney formation involves drilling deeply vertically and then boring horizontally as much as four kilometers. A mixture of water, sand and chemicals is forced into a well at high pressure, splitting the rock to release gas or oil.
If the procedure hits a mistake, it can cause seismic activity.
In the BC, the industry recognized the risk. However, Ovintiv website states “the occurrence and risk of seismicity are generally very low,” and says that it has a framework for “proactive resolution of seismic activities through partnerships with independent research institutions and regulatory agencies to reduce all related or identified risks” .
The company hosted counseling with the inhabitants of Kabzems, but rejected an interview with CBC News.
The frequency of stronger earthquakes is not limited to the region of the Peace River. And in BC and the areas of the gas and oil of Alberta, the number of earthquakes with higher Magnitud grew.
“In 2021, we saw about 60 earthquakes a year, and in 2024 we were up to 160,” said Gail Atkinson, an advisory seismologist and former professor at Western University in London, on.
Atkinson, who has studied “caused seismicity for decades,” says there is a direct connection between the growing number of earthquakes and the stronger seismic events.
“Most of the earthquakes you got are smaller in size,” she said. But more earthquakes mean a greater incidence of earthquakes at every size, including strong.
“The more we are frauding, the more oil and gas we take, the more earthquakes we will have. And the more chance is that one of these earthquakes will have an undesirable consequence,” she said. “That’s a compromise.”
In November 2018, construction workers who built the Brana C Brana on River Peace were forced to evacuate the place of work because of an induced earthquake that was 4.6.
Atkinson invites regulators to pay more attention to growing risks and create larger tampons of zones.
“I think it is for critical infrastructure like the main dams […] It makes a lot more sense to have zones to exclude to a fraction around the high values of the goals, “she said.
‘It’s big’
Emergency to resolve risk is exacerbated by the renewed flourishing in Fracking in northeast BC. For the first time the opening of overseas markets by Canadian gas.
The pipeline is scheduled to carry two million cubic meters of gas per day, and this production in Montney could have doubled in the next 20 years.
The appeal of US President Donald Trump on “drilling, child, drilling” suggests that he will support more oil and gas production. His candidate for Energy Secretary, Chris Wright, Liberty Energy CEO is a bull on Fracking.
But the signs of ascent in the earthquakes caused by fracking are also visible in the Texa oil patch.
In one week this summer, Scurry, Texas, was hit with more than 60 earthquakes. CBC Susan Ormiston goes there to explore why experts direct their fingers into the oil industry and find more concern about the earthquakes in the gas fields of northeast BC
Last July 60 shivers in one week – ranging from small to significant – shook the area around Snyder in Texas.
Jay Callaway was on office as a city emergency management coordinator on July 26.
“It sounded like a herd of cattle. And then it was just a creepy feeling. And then it sounded like a cattle was leaving,” he told CBC, standing in a local fire department building.
His first thought was, “There is great.” Was Magnituda 5.1.
Callaway started receiving calls.
“Reports of cracks in walls, approaches, foundations – [that] It was the main damage, “he said. The emergency team had to repair a crack in the city water line.
The Quakes also appeared on monitors in the laboratory at the University of Texas in Austin, where seismologist Alexandros Savvaidis can see an earthquake in real time.
Normally, he says, there are several hundred earthquakes a day – most of them are small, smaller than magnitude 1.5.
While the oil industry itself slowly acknowledged any connection between fracking and earthquakes, Savvaidis was recruited from Europe to help with TEXNET, a program financed by a state to monitor seismic events from the Texas oil patch.
They now have 200 sensors across the country.
“When I came here in 2016, [the producers] were in denial. That’s not really the best, “Savvaidis said.” I think in the last five years it has been accepted by the industry and the public. “
Gambling in Midland
The HUB industry is Midland, in the Permo pool rich in oil. Oil research is so much embedded in culture that even the place of the new drama Paramount+ Spear.
In Midland, drilling and fraction are so pervading that it is happening in the city now. The high rigid run into the parking lot and the market center. Below the horizontal wells will extend far beyond the pad, stretching several kilometers below the city.
“This operator, they have a belief that they just get better wells where no one has drilled before,” said Steve Melzer, an oil industry advisor and an engineer. “Bet this is a fertile soil that has not been touched because it was in town.”
But Melzer recognizes seismic activity last summer is the risk of industry.
Fraking relies on huge amounts of water, which needs to be stored. According to Savvaidis, the storage of water causes most of the induced emergency in Texas.
“If we have another big, especially near the urban center, it will affect us,” Melzer said. “We hope we can manage, an engineer of more use of that water instead of bringing it back to the ground.”
Saving fluid is sensitive and the wrong pressure, depth or quantity can stimulate seismic activity. This is a problem that Melzer is focused on solving, how to improve the procedure and looking at other purposes of water, to reduce the amounts of underground warehouses.
“If we cannot reduce the amount of water by entering in [underground] Formations, we will have to slow down drilling. ”
Warning system
Kabzems officially complained of a fracking pad in Farmington, BC, but has not had an answer since October. Meanwhile, construction continues.
The BC energy regulator indicates protection such as 35 seismic monitors in the Montney area and the “traffic light system” warning the seismic activity regulator. At the levels of Magnitude 3 or more, operators must stop fraction and explore.
Gail Atkinson says the measures are useful but not flawless, because they do not precede the larger earthquakes smaller.
“If you have one who just illuminates immediately and gives you a magnitude 4 or 5 as your first salvo, the traffic light will not succeed,” she said.
“I don’t blame oil and gas companies to follow existing regulations. They have a job. They have their models at risk,” she said.
“It is really on regulators and government to protect the population and also to protect the industry as a whole to ensure that we do not end with an ecological disaster as a result of an earthquake created in the wrong place.”
