SafeFrac real-time monitoring system

SafeFrac is an effective, autonomous, tool that aids efforts to make water injection and/or hydraulic fracturing safe from an induced seismicity perspective.

In this part of process it is useful to strictly monitor what happens in the surrounding of the well and to immediately discover even a very small seismic activity. SafeFrac allows a well operator to manage the potential for causing the induced seismicity and to control operations according to the current situation.

This parametric Traffic Light System consists of agreed amount of seismic receivers provided by Seismik and a proprietary software system processing seismic data in the real-time. The optimal station network geometry may be designed using our NetDesign system. SafeFrac thresholds are set in cooperation with the Client - it may eliminate either possible building damage, surface felt events or it may just monitor the seismicity starting at a very small level. The Traffic Light System reports events larger than the set threshold to the operator and it either leads to a reduction in a fracturing or termination of the operation immediately reducing the size of the largest induced earthquakes. Moment magnitudes of detected events are automatically calculated and in case of exceeding a set level of magnitude location computation is started. SafeFrac can be easily combined with the long-term monitoring of natural seismicity prior to the well operation.

The tailored web map portal is used for the visualization of the results. It includes many possibilities of presentations both on the maps and in the charts. Our clients have a chance to analyze the results on their own almost in the real-time.

 

SafeFrac Features:

  •  Monitoring in real-time with 4 or more stations detecting events down to 0.5 local magnitude

  •  A quick and professional deployment within 12 hours

  •  Close communication with the fracking engineer

  •  A possible use of solar panels as an energy source for the seismic stations

  •  Detecting and employing frequencies higher than 1 Hz

  •  The technology is well established and was it developed in a cooperation with RefTek (now a Trimble company) using highly reliable telemetry and high-quality seismic stations (LE-3D/Lite seismometers)

  •  If the client company has his own seismic stations the system is ready to process data being provided in different data formats