How the Oil and Gas industry is using Technology to reduce Water Consumption

As the United States has recently emerged as the world’s largest oil and gas producer. It's mainly because of the “shale" which has changed not only America’s energy landscape but also the global energy market. This may sound like a fiction story but it is true! While total world resources of oil shale are conservatively estimated at 2.6 trillion barrels, US sits on close to two trillion barrels of crude. Possibly more than all the crude than was ever produced worldwide since petroleum age began.  But In some states and regions, consumption of water has made it difficult to recover more of it. As fracking requires millions of gallons of water per well.

A 2009 report on modern shale gas by the Groundwater Protection Council, "Modern Shale Gas Development in the United States: A Primer," stated that: “The amount of water needed to drill and fracture a horizontal shale gas well generally ranges from about 2 million to 4 million gallons, depending on the basin and formation characteristics.”

A 2010 Harvard study found that, on average, water consumption for natural gas produced through fracking ranges from 0.6 to 1.8 gallons of water per MMBtu (Mielke, Anadon and Narayanamurti 2010).

U.S. nationwide water consumption for fracking is about 1% of the total, in such scenario companies are actively developing and using new technologies to reduce water use.
For example, Apache, a major operator in Texas, is using undrinkable and recycled produced water for its drilling and fracking operations with no freshwater supplies. The company has recycled more than 1.2 million barrels of produced water. Apache sources some of its water from the Santa Rosa aquifer, Texas whose water is unsuitable for humans or agriculture. Other operator companies in west Texas like, Pioneer Natural Resources, Anadarko are purchasing wastewater from the city of Odessa to use in its local oil and gas operations.

Energy development is the base of the economy in these regions, as supports many high-paying jobs. The sufficient oil and gas production provides America enough energy and it results in less import of oil from international market, and the use of nonpotable water means that local residents will be having plenty of underground drinking water.


In some cases, water recycling is not economical, So the Technological innovations are allowing operator companies to increase water recycling and improve overall operations. 

In 2013, Halliburton documented how reusing produced water and flowback helped save as much as $100,000 off the cost of each well for which it was used. and company says "The wells, which were in Eddy County, New Mexico, “have shown no loss of production,"

It costs Apache less than $0.30 to treat a barrel of water for reuse in west Texas. Traditionally, companies drag wastewater to separate injection wells. But it costs about ten times as much to use that same wastewater for disposal. New technologies are helping oil and gas companies make processes more economical, environmentally friendly and safer.

Water cost is one of the significant expense for oil and gas companies, sometimes totaling as much as about 10 percent of each well’s capital cost, according to IHS CERA. More innovation means more water savings, which translates to lower costs and, ultimately, the capacity for even greater investment.

As the Wall Street Journal recently reported, “Some of the largest independent U.S. oil and gas companies are spending now to save money on water later.”

A critic might suggest that these are only tales—perhaps high-profile exceptions to the rule. Wastewater disposal, after all, is still a common practice. But only a few years ago, many of these technologies and processes were nowhere to be seen. The challenge then was innovating and using technology to solve a complex environmental problem. Now technology is helping the oil and gas industry overcome many challenges to operate more efficiently and more safely.

Clearly, the oil and gas industry has accepted the challenge of backing new technology to improve operations. And the best news is that it's only just beginning.