There were 11 quakes Sunday and Monday in the Mentone area 80 miles west of Odessa in Loving County, which has a population of 64.
Notwithstanding the Texas Railroad Commission’s order for the indefinite suspension of all deep oil- and gas-produced water injection in the Gardendale Seismic Response Area, which was effective Dec. 31, the area has registered 23 earthquakes in the past two weeks including a door-knocking one of 4.5 magnitude on the Richter Scale at 8 p.m. Monday 11 miles north of Stanton.
That order followed the September order that numerous salt water disposal wells in the Permian Basin be capped.
EarthquakeTrack.com and the U.S. Geological Survey data details that one quake from a depth of 4.3 miles tied for the second-strongest quake in West Texas in the past decade.
Railroad Commission spokesman Andrew Keese said Tuesday from Austin that the oil and gas-regulating agency was dispatching inspectors to the Basin this week.
While issuing its September order, Keese said, the commission hoped for an immediately beneficial effect but did not necessarily expect one. “We are aware of the earthquakes and are sending inspectors to nearby salt water disposal wells and we will be taking any actions necessary to protect residents and the environment,” Keese said.
“We’re also working with the operators of SWDs in the Northern Culberson-Reeves Seismic Response Area.”
Tommy Taylor, oil director of Fasken Oil & Ranch Inc. and chairman of the Permian Basin Petroleum Association, told the Odessa American in mid-October that the quakes are “a very complex problem to solve” because the source or sources of the tremors are hard to pinpoint in the San Andres and Ellenburger formations and the Midland and Delaware basins underground.
“It may take up to a year before we see a reduction in the earthquakes, but hopefully the ones we feel, the 3.0s that shake the house, will subside earlier,” Taylor said.
Here are the other recent quakes:
- Monday, 3.3 magnitude at Toyah in Reeves County, 3.2 at Stanton and 3.5, 3.0, 2.8, 2.5, 3.2, 3.1, 3.5, 3.6 and 2.5 at Mentone.
- Sunday, 2.9 and 2.5 at Mentone and 3.0 at Stanton.
- Saturday, 2.7 at Van Horn.
- Last Friday, 2.6 at Garden City and 2.6 at Pecos.
- Last Thursday, 2.5 at Stanton.
- A week ago, 2.3 at Gardendale.
- Two weeks ago, 2.0 at Garden City and 3.3 and 1.9 at Gardendale.
