Borehole drilling can’t cause earthquake – Drillers president

A geologist and president of the Borehole Drillers Association of Nigeria (BODAN), Francis Uzoma, has said drilling activities do not in any way cause harm to the environment nor will it trigger  an earthquake. He was reacting to the fear raised in some quarters that there was an impending earthquake due to borehole drilling activities. […]

A geologist and president of the Borehole Drillers Association of Nigeria (BODAN), Francis Uzoma, has said drilling activities do not in any way cause harm to the environment nor will it trigger  an earthquake.
He was reacting to the fear raised in some quarters that there was an impending earthquake due to borehole drilling activities.
Speaking in Abuja, the BODAN boss said the assertion was based on false alarm which he described as baseless. “Whoever have made that statement has no knowledge of the geology of Nigeria,” he added.
“I have never heard anywhere in the world where borehole drilling caused an earthquake. So considering what causes an earthquake, earthquake emanates from a very deeper part of the earth. The drilling we are doing does not even cut across such strata so that information is baseless and should be discarded,” he said.
 He said the distance between the crusts and the mantle was about 50,000 kilometres, and most of the drilling they did was on the crusts. 
Earthquake, according to him, emanated usually on the boundary between the mantle and the crusts, saying, “the drilling we do has not gotten that deep, usually we do a very shallow drilling of 30 to 40 meters and in sedimentary areas we go as much as 100 to 200 meters. I want to say that information is not something anybody should worry about.”
 However, he said BODAN is venturing into Public Private Partnership (PPP) to ensure that drilling process is standardized.
The association, he said, was collaborating with UNICEF to see how contents would be developed for the training curriculum to improve the capacity of the drillers.
He also maintained that BODAN would continue to collaborate with the government and other relevant stakeholders in project execution, monitoring and training as well as quality assurance to reduce borehole breakdown and have sustainable boreholes.