Brine Injection Wells

Don't know if this is the same location: Mahoning County well injection well

"On Friday, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources announced a temporary halt of operations at the D & L brine injection well off Salt Springs Road following the latest earthquake, which happened early on Christmas Eve. After a 4.0-magnitude earthquake hit the area again Saturday, Gov. John Kasich ordered a temporary suspension on all injection wells within 5 miles of the D & L site while ODNR accesses the situation."
Looks like we don't know?

Or this:Brine disposal at Ohio injection well halted

Yep, that is the one.

I have heard so many stories about depth and this is the 1st time I have seen anything about it on line.

Out here, some of the shallow well drillers claim they have been approached to drill brine wells. I doubt any have the capabilities to drill 1-1/2 to 2 miles deep.

If they are anything like our local ones they still charge like they just drilled a mile or two deep well even if it was only 150 - 250 feet deep.

If you wanted one to actually drill that far for you here it would be cheaper to buy your own custom built oil rig and do the well yourself.

Holy s**t!!

I am not sure how its done in other places but here in the oil fields the disposal wells are all going into a massive salt water aquifer that is around 5000 feet down and about half way between the oil formations and the surface.

The reason they use the salt water aquifer here is because its well known for being all around nasty to begin with so pumping anything else into it isn't going to bother it one bit more either. If anything the millions of barrels of production water being pumped into it now are probably diluting it!

From what I recall they are running most of the disposal wells here at around 600 - 1500 PSI surface pressure depending on what location and flow rate they are working at.

Interesting, thank you!

This relates to the issue of geological sequestration of CO2 polluting the groundwater by saline intrusion. Brine displaced from the formation to make way for supercritical (and very buoyant) CO2 has to go somewhere. If extracted to the surface, it becomes industrial waste, subject to the same stringent disposal requirements as reverse osmosis reject brine, which is a major constraint on desalination deployment. If pushed around underground, this very saline brine may intrude into fresh water aquifers. Just trucking it offsite and letting it leak out on the road to an alleged injection well is the cheapest solution. Is anybody checking in Ohio? Can they distinguish between road salt, laid down to deal with ice, and salt from leaky trucks from Pennsylvania fracking operations? Are the injection wells for real?

Ohio DNR seems pretty lax to me in regard to my industry and I don't like it. I often have to push my vendor to act in a more responsible way, as Shell mandates it in our QSHE Program and Specifications.

I have been in the midst of the Brine Tankers on I80, I76, and I77 a few times.

Like the garbage haulers from NJ and NY delivering Municipal waste to PA landfills, they are pretty rude, and I suspect the trucks need to be stopped and checked by DOTs on a regular basis and by surprise inspections.

It seems that most Checkpoints for trucks are closed later in the day and these trucks travel late evening and at night.

By the EPA the waste from oil and natural gas wells is to be injected back into the same geological stratum it came from or a similar one.

I have been in the oil patch 2hrs. west of Edmonton Alberta for 11 years and ask as many questions as I could get away with. We have several disposal wells in our area some were drilled specifically for the purpose and some are old wells that ran dry. The two that I know were injecting at 600 and 650 psi. plus the head pressure it becomes quite substantial. Only a few that I know of use the produced water to scavenge oil or condensate as most are gas wells. The well depth in our area varies from approx. 2200m. to 4000m. once in awhile we get a deep one to about 5700m. I'm currently doing the down hole cementing, lately most holes seem to kick off sideways at around the 2300m. mark. As for the trucking I don't know about the states but in Canada all produced fluids are regulated and need the proper paperwork and the tanks and trucks need to be inspected regularly. Shell is one of our toughest to work for with all there HSE regs (HSE=Health,Safety,Environment) it's quite a pain in my ass. I hope this helped.

Earthquakes in Ohio have been attributed to the injection wells. Imagine the catastrophe that will lurk under us once the CO2 sequestration project gets going: http://www.power-eng.com/articles/2012/01/ohio-officials-shut-down-gas-production-sites-over-earthquake-concerns.html