We present an overview of induced seismicity due to subsurface engineering in the Netherlands. Our overview includes events induced by gas extraction, underground gas storage, geothermal heat extraction, salt solution mining and post-mining water ingress. Compared to natural seismicity, induced events are usually small (magnitudes ≤ 4.0). However, due to the soft topsoils in combination with shallow hypocentres, in the Netherlands events exceeding magnitude 1.5–2.0 may be felt by the public. These events can potentially damage houses and infrastructure, and undermine public acceptance. Felt events were induced by gas production in the north of the Netherlands and by post-mining water ingress in the south-east. Notorious examples are the earthquakes induced by gas production from the large Groningen gas field with magnitudes up to 3.6. Here, extensive non-structural damage incurred and public support was revoked. As a consequence, production will be terminated in 2022 leaving approximately 800 billion cubic metres of gas unexploited. The magnitudes of the events observed at underground gas storage, geothermal heat production and salt solution mining projects have so far been very limited (magnitudes ≤ 1.7). However, in the future larger events cannot be excluded. Project- or industry-specific risk governance protocols, extensive gathering of subsurface data and adequate seismic monitoring are therefore essential to allow sustainable use of the Dutch subsurface now and over the decades to come.
Nowadays oil and gas exploration and production is often performed in geomechanically challenging enviroments where the risks can be high and problems are costly. Choosing the right scale and complexity of a model is critical for performing an effective and efficient geomechanical analysis that addresses the problem without unnecessarily expending resources like time, computation power or software license costs.In this paper different geomechanical modeling techniques are compared for their accuracy and efficiency using a relatively simple (continental slope) and a more complex geological setting (submarine canyon). This has been done by comparing the resulting state of stress of 1D well-centric geomechanical models with those of reservoir-scale 3D geocellular and 4D finite-element models.The more complex submarine canyon model shows that in relatively complex areas the 1D and 3D geomechanical models no longer give accurate stress results and a 4D model is needed to accurately simulate the state of stress. On the other hand, the continental shelf model shows that in a simple geological setting creating a 1D wellbore-scale geomechanical model is an efficient and effective way of calculating stress. The 1D model gives an accurate state of stress comparable with the more complex 3D and 4D reservoir-scale geomechanical models. Not having to create, simulate and analyze a reservoirscale model can save time for better analysis of the results, dealing with uncertainties of the model and/or doing a sensitivity analysis.The paper concludes that the initial step in a geomechanical study is assessing the geomechanical application of the model, taking the complexity of the geological setting into account and based on that assessment chosing the modeling complexity that is necessary to get accurate results, without unnecessarily spending resources.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.