Seismic monitoring of underground activities for energy production: Survey of the existing facilities with reference to the Italian monitoring guidelines

This paper reports the results of a study aimed at analyzing the existing seismic monitoring infrastructures of underground activities for energy production. The study was carried out by the Italian National Institute of Oceanography and Applied Geophysics (OGS), in collaboration with the Italian National Research Council - Institute for Electromagnetic Detection of the Environment (CNRIREA), in the framework of the partnership established by the Ministry of Economic Development, Directorate General for Safety of Mining and Energy Activities - National Mining Office for Hydrocarbons and Georesources (MiSE DGS-UNMIG), with Italian Universities and Research Institutions within the so-called "Network for Offshore Safety". Firstly, a survey was carried out by sending a questionnaire to companies to gather information about the infrastructures and procedures for monitoring seismicity, ground deformation and pore pressure, respectively, implemented within the hydrocarbon exploitation fields for either production or re-injection or gas-storage currently present in Italy. Then, the data obtained by the survey were analyzed with reference to the requirements of the "Italian Guidelines for monitoring the seismicity, underground deformation and pore pressure" (ILG) (Dialuce et al., 2014), in order to establish the possible needs for upgrading and, subsequently, assessing the relative costs. This paper reports the evaluation of the technical part, i.e. that concerning the upgrade of the monitoring systems.