4 Solutions for Reducing Water Consumption in the Oil & Gas

If the new boom in shale fracking is to become cost-effective and environmentally sustainable, the industry must find new ways to save water.

How to reduce fresh water usage—as well as treat and reuse water from shale production —is one of the greatest challenges facing the onshore oil and gas industry, particularly at the thousands of wells in drought-affected parts of the USA. With water management accounting for 10-30% of costs, can the shale fracking revolution be maintained by using new water-saving techniques?

DirectIndustry e-magazine presents technologies that could help an industry faced with a future of cheap oil, where both cost-cutting and sustainable environmental practices are at the very top of the agenda.

1. Recycling Brackish Water

Hydraulic fracturing—fracking—uses a slurry of sand, steam and chemicals to crack open shale formations with very low permeability, allowing hydrocarbons to flow to the well-bore and then to the surface. Multiple fracturing at one well typically requires about 200,000 barrels of water. The process results in a complex effluent of oils, grease and chemical additives that contains more barium, strontium, calcium and magnesium salts than saltwater. It’s a problematic process, but solutions are emerging. In Texas, Apache has developed a unique system using brackish and recycled fracking water, while Pioneer recently announced a plan to use a 20-mile polyethylene pipe to take 150,000 barrels per day of treated municipal wastewater from a water reclamation plant in Odessa, Texas.

Courtesy of Apache