دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی زمین لرزه های اوکلاهما و قیمت نفت - الزویر 2018

ABSTRACT

The process of hydraulic fracturing has unlocked an unprecedented amount of oil and gas in the United States. Hydrocarbons are not the only output from this process, though, as billions of barrels of “produced” water are extracted and subsequently pumped back underground. This process of injecting produced water into disposal wells has been causally linked to the rise in earthquakes. Here I show how the amount of earthquakes in Oklahoma are positively linked to the price of oil, and further find that the decrease in earthquake activity in Oklahoma is due to both the drop in oil prices and the regulatory directives of regional authorities. The estimated impact of the various shut-in policies have been small compared to the reduction in earthquakes due to the broad price decline, though. I find that the drop in oil prices that began in mid-2014 led to as large of a reduction in earthquakes as the combined effect f new policies that started in March of 2015.

4. Conclusion and policy implications

This research has shown that the price of oil is a major determining factor in the amount of earthquakes witnessed in the state of Oklahoma. This finding makes intuitive sense because as the price of oil increases, further exploration and production is incentivized, and as more oil and gas are produced, so too is the amount of ‘produced’ water which is subsequently pumped deep underground into injection wells. The causal link between wastewater disposal and earthquake activity has been established in the geological literature, and the present research aids in establishing a correlation between the economic viability of oil production (and hence wastewater production) and the amount of earthquakes in Oklahoma.

In an effort to curb earthquake activity in Oklahoma, state regulators issued directives and established areas of interest in which the daily volume and depth of disposal was limited. While at first these policy measures seemed effective, one must also consider that these policies were issued when the price of oil was reaching new lows. I find that there has been a statistically discernible effect on the daily amount of earthquakes in the time-period of policy prescriptions. However, the decrease in earthquake activity has as much to do with the low price environment as the policies. In total, I find that the era of disposal directives is associated with about 2.7 fewer earthquakes per day. This finding is robust to modeling assumptions and remains true when longer futures contracts are considered, local competitive advantages are accounted for by using an asymmetric error correction model, and when the sample period is extended to include observations from 2000 to 2009.