Produced Water Recovery seems to be one of the most costly aspects of operations in shale gas plays. Due to the fact that in the S. States shale plays well economics are becoming tighter, operators are taking every possible measure they can in order to reduce costs of water management by using the latest technology to contain, handle, re-use, use, treat and dispose of the water safely, while at the same time, reduce their environmental footprint.
The good news is that technology in this industry has advanced a lot and with more operator led research and application than ever before, operators now have one last question to find an answer to: What steps need to be taken in order to reduce the cost in water management for hydraulic fracturing and which water treatment technologies are a good idea to invest in?
When it comes to produce water, you should know that this is basically a very complex mixture of inorganic and organic compounds and also the biggest volume of byproduct that’s generated during oil and gas recovery operations. There are many significant elements that are strongly tied to the gas and oil business. To include them, they are increasing the environmental concerns in addition to the ever more stringent legislation on water that is discharged into the environment and the potential of oilfield produced water to be a source of fresh water for H20 stressed oil producing countries.
There are a few companies that have come up with their own special water treatment solutions that are very useful for removing salts and maximizing the recovery of treated water for beneficial reuse or discharge, while at the same time minimizing the volume of waste and consumption requiring disposal. This technology seems to have been initially developed for treating coal-bed methane sources in various areas of the United States. The good news is that these companies have found a way to modify the pre-treatment system, which makes this method a viable solution for treating produced waters in various operating basins in Canada, the United States and of course, globally.
