American Oil and Gas Reporter - August 2016 - 56

SpecialReport: Hydraulic Fracturing Technology

All-In Water Cost Relative to Freshwater

Just as oil and gas companies invest in building out gathering
A good example is the brackish water-bearing Santa Rosa forsystems to collect, treat and move produced oil and natural gas from
mation located at depths of 800-1,200 feet in the Permian Basin,
the field to the point of sale, operators are focused on applying best
and hydrologically separated from shallower freshwater aquifers.
practices and best-available technologies to source, treat and move
Operators in the Permian Basin are drilling dedicated Santa Rosa
water to the point of use in the field. In unconventional resource
wells and treating brackish water to remove sulfates, magnesium,
plays, an effective water management plan is as important as an
iron, solids, bacteria, etc., to ensure water supplies for fractureffective field development plan, and water handling facilities have
ing wells in the Wolfcamp, Spraberry and other resource plays.
become as necessary as the
In regions with limited freshpumps, compressors, separators,
water sources, treated brackish
"Just as oil and gas companies invest in buildpipelines, etc., used to produce
water is proving an invaluable
ing out gathering systems to collect, treat and
move
produced
oil
and
natural
gas
from
the
the hydrocarbons.
source. There are a number of
field to the point of sale, operators are focused
drivers behind operators' decisions
Supply Sourcing
on applying best practices and best-available
to move to using brackish and
technologies to source, treat and move water
The first challenge in water
produced water to frac wells, into the point of use in the field."
management is sourcing sufficluding economic, regulatory and
cient supplies. Economics dicenvironmental considerations.
tate locating water sources as close as possible within a given opEconomic Sense
erating area. This certainly has been the pattern when using freshwater, with operators either accessing local surface water or drilling
With the right infrastructure, using alternative water sources
water wells nearby. However, a key best practice being established
makes economic sense by resulting in less transportation and disacross the industry is utilizing nonfreshwater sources when posposal costs. In fact, the total cost of alternative water sources can
sible, including produced water, low-quality water from underbe significantly lower than the all-in cost associated with using
ground brackish reservoirs, and wastewater from industrial, powfreshwater, as shown in Figure 1.
er and municipal plants. The challenge is that all of these sources
Water is treated and reused locally whenever possible, enabling
introduce greater variabilities in water quality and consistency,
optimized material movement and field development planning.
requiring careful planning, treating and processing before use in
From the environmental and regulatory perspectives, the abilifracturing operations.
ty to use less freshwater, move water shorter distances, reduce
Fracturing fluid systems developed specifically for handling
truck traffic on local roadways, and limit produced water disposthe high variability inherent with nonpotable water supplies make
al volumes without harming production economics is a win/win
it possible to optimize water resources and minimize disposal volproposition for the industry.
umes. Consider brackish water, which previously was thought to
The specifics of source selection depend on the scale of a frachave no beneficial application. Brackish water has become a sigturing operation, available infrastructure and proximity to sourcnificant alternative water source in many unconventional plays.
ing options. In the case of drilling new wells in producing fields,
a strong economic case often can be made for establishing infrastructure to reuse local produced water. With sufficient scale, pad
FIGURE 1
operations give operators the ability to install flexible piping and
Total Water Cost By Source
equipment to capture, treat and store flowback and produced wa100%
ter in relative close proximity both to where it is generated and
90%
where it will be needed to complete the next well pad.
80%
70%
Reusing flowback and produced water provides significant ad60%
vantages with respect to economics and logistics as well as health,
50%
safety and environmental factors. Operators in the Marcellus Shale
40%
30%
play were among the first to achieve 100 percent recycling effi20%
ciency in their fracturing operations, but the Permian Basin is prob10%
ably the region where reuse efforts are most active and being con0%
Freshwater
Brackish Water
Batch-Treated
Inline-Treated
ducted on the largest scale.
Produced Water
Produced Water
Capital Recovery
Purchase
Chemical Treatment
Operating Overhead
Disposal
That said, operators in virtually every play are working on
reusing flowback and produced waters, with the economics drivSource: Apache Corp., SPE-174956
56 THE AMERICAN OIL & GAS REPORTER
American Oil and Gas Reporter - August 2016

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