In some ways minerals and land people have less availability of AI and massive databases than their coworkers in geology and engineering. That’s because engineers and geologists lean on extensive internal and external monitoring systems to gather their data, which can then be examined and used by AI for automation and for human input. For […]
Getting Grounded on the Seismicity Issue
Click here to listen to the Audio verison of this story! Is Induced Seismicity a punk band or a geologic event? If you said, “Geologic event,” you’d be correct. If you guessed, “Punk band,” please let us know which clubs you’ve been visiting. You are sitting at home in Midland, and you hear a […]
Too Much, Too Fast?
“Go to the ant,” suggested King Solomon, because even without a company man, the ant “stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest.” Retired veteran oilman Mike Shellman admits that he is a contrarian when it comes to how fast and hard to push production from new wells. And he avoids shale […]
So the Rocks Don’t Roll
Making the jolts felt in places like Gardendale, Stanton, and northern Culberson County in recent years “leave and go away” is the goal of the Texas Railroad Commission (RRC), producers like Chevron, and others. Anthropogenic, or human-caused, earthquakes—specifically from injection activities including saltwater disposal wells (SWD) and, to a lesser extent, hydraulic fracturing, have increased […]