A Control Framework for Induced Seismicity Mitigation in Groningen Gas Reservoir

TL;DR

This paper introduces a control framework that minimizes induced seismicity in the Groningen gas field by regulating well operations through a robust feedback controller, balancing seismic risk and production goals.

Contribution

It develops a cascade model coupling pore-pressure diffusion with seismicity dynamics and designs a feedback control system to manage seismicity while maintaining production constraints.

Findings

The control framework effectively reduces seismicity levels in simulations.

The approach balances seismic mitigation with production objectives.

Validation against Groningen data supports the model's reliability.

Abstract

Induced seismicity associated with gas production poses major operational and societal challenges, as illustrated by the Groningen field in the Netherlands. While many studies have focused on forecasting seismicity under prescribed production scenarios, fewer works address the inverse problem: designing operational strategies that minimize seismicity while maintaining production objectives. In this paper, we propose a control-oriented methodology for operating Groningen under induced-seismicity mitigation constraints. We employ a cascade model coupling pore-pressure diffusion with seismicity rate (SR) dynamics, and complement it with a stochastic event-generation procedure to convert the continuous SR field into a synthetic earthquake catalog with event times, locations, and magnitudes. From this catalog, we estimate regional SR measurements and design a robust feedback controller that computes well-rate commands to regulate the SR toward a desired reference while satisfying operational requirements, including prescribed production constraints. The proposed control architecture explicitly accounts for injection and extraction flux limits (actuator saturation). The well fluxes generated by the controller are updated at discrete-time intervals (digital control). We validate the modeling components against Groningen data and illustrate the approach through numerical experiments under different scenarios, including various control update periods and gain selections, as well as combined production with compensating injection (e.g., reinjection of nitrogen). The results illustrate how the proposed framework can reduce seismicity levels in a controlled manner while maximizing production targets.