Abstract
We investigated the spatial relationships among 18 known seismogenic faults and 1651 wells drilled for gas exploitation in the main hydrocarbon province of northern-central Italy, a unique dataset worldwide. We adopted a GIS approach and a robust statistical technique, and found a significant anticorrelation between the location of productive wells and of the considered seismogenic faults, which are often overlain or encircled by unproductive wells. Our observations suggest that (a) earthquake ruptures encompassing much of the upper crust may cause gas to be lost to the atmosphere over geological time, and that (b) reservoirs underlain by smaller or aseismic faults are more likely to be intact. These findings, which are of inherently global relevance, have crucial implications for future hydrocarbon exploitation, for assessing the seismic–aseismic behaviour of large reverse faults, and for the public acceptance of underground energy and CO2 storage facilities—a pillar of future low carbon energy systems—in tectonically active areas.
Highlights
We investigated the spatial relationships among 18 known seismogenic faults and 1651 wells drilled for gas exploitation in the main hydrocarbon province of northern-central Italy, a unique dataset worldwide
We explored in a GIS-environment the spatial relationships among 1651 wells drilled for gas exploitation and 18 known seismogenic faults (Fig. 1a and Table 1: see the “Methods” section) occurring over an area of over 50,000 km[2]
We first calculated both minimum planar (2D) distances, from the well head to the closest point of a 2.0 km buffer drawn around the surface projection of each seismogenic fault, and minimum three-dimensional (3D) distances, from the well bottom to the closest point on the actual fault plane
Summary
We investigated the spatial relationships among 18 known seismogenic faults and 1651 wells drilled for gas exploitation in the main hydrocarbon province of northern-central Italy, a unique dataset worldwide. Our observations suggest that (a) earthquake ruptures encompassing much of the upper crust may cause gas to be lost to the atmosphere over geological time, and that (b) reservoirs underlain by smaller or aseismic faults are more likely to be intact These findings, which are of inherently global relevance, have crucial implications for future hydrocarbon exploitation, for assessing the seismic–aseismic behaviour of large reverse faults, and for the public acceptance of underground energy and CO2 storage facilities—a pillar of future low carbon energy systems—in tectonically active areas. This study explores the spatial distribution of productive and unproductive gas fields in relation with the occurrence of large active and potentially seismogenic faults, capable of generating Mw 5.5 + earthquakes (allowing for a +/− 0.2 uncertainty), that is the lower bound adopted by the DISS database (see “Methods” section). Oil fields occur mostly in the western Po Plain, in the southern Apennines and in S icily[15,16]
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