The Seismicity at the Castor Underground Gas Storage, Spain, was Induced
by Pressure Buildup, Buoyancy, Aseismic Slip, Shear Slip Stress Transfer
and Slip-Driven Pressure Changes
Abstract
The Underground Gas Storage (UGS) project of Castor, Spain, was
strategically conceived to guarantee the Spanish gas demand during 50
days. Yet, the project did not enter into operation because it was
cancelled as a result of a sequence of felt earthquakes induced after
cushion gas injection. The project cancellation implied an investment
compensation to the operating company that may cost up to 4.73 billion
euros to Spanish citizens. The sequence contained the three largest
earthquakes (M4.08, M4.01 and M3.97) ever induced by any of the more
than 640 UGS facilities around the world. The largest earthquakes were
induced some 20 days after stopping injection, which lasted for 15 days.
The focal depth of these earthquakes was between 4 to 10 km, far deeper
than the 1.7 km injection depth. To understand the causes of this
induced seismicity, we have performed coupled two-phase flow and
geomechanical numerical simulations and we have employed Okada’s
solution to analyze the shear slip stress transfer. We analyzed four
seismicity-inducing mechanisms (pore pressure build-up, stress transfer,
destabilizing buoyancy, and recovery of pressure drops that ensure
transient stability in regions that are mechanically destabilized after
a microseism). We found that the onset of seismicity was induced by gas
injection, which reactivated the critically stressed Amposta fault
through pore pressure buildup and buoyancy. The Amposta fault, a mature
fault bounding the storage formation, crept, accumulating aseismic slip.
Destabilization of the fault continued even after the stop of injection
because of the permanent effect of buoyancy caused by the low density of
the injected gas. The progressive accumulation of slip perturbed the
stress around the rupture area of the Amposta fault and eventually
reactivated a critically stressed unmapped fault located in the
crystalline basement. Once this deep fault was reactivated, the sequence
of earthquakes was induced by shear slip stress transfer, with transient
slip-driven pore pressure changes likely controlling the delay between
earthquakes. We contend that an analysis of fault stability prior to gas
injection would have identified the high risk of inducing seismicity at
Castor.