The Permian's Dirty Secret

[Marina Schwarz + 1,576]

Alright, it's not a secret, but it's dirty: wastewater, which is making a whole industry thrive with spending on wastewater management to reach $22 billion in five years. Meanwhile earthquakes... 

[Epic + 390]

22 minutes ago, Marina Schwarz said:

$22 billion

^That is a lot of money.  My guess is that these high costs will cause some enterprising individual to come up with a clever solution to those costs, and that solution will earn him a pretty penny.  Then those costs will plummet, and all will be well in the shale world.

Of course, this assumes that we can keep socialism at bay.  If we can't, then there will be no incentive to reduce costs because the government will want to get its hands wet in the whole wastewater business, and then shale will soon be drowning in high costs.

[Marina Schwarz + 1,576]

It's a lot of water, I gather, so yeah, a lot of money will go into disposing of it. Could be even more if there's a quake scare or two. These have been linked by the USGS to wastewater from drilling. Given the sheer quantities of liquid, finding an alternative solution would be a challenge but it would be interesting to see if it gets overcome.

[ceo_energemsier + 1,818]

On 9/10/2018 at 12:57 AM, Marina Schwarz said:

It's a lot of water, I gather, so yeah, a lot of money will go into disposing of it. Could be even more if there's a quake scare or two. These have been linked by the USGS to wastewater from drilling. Given the sheer quantities of liquid, finding an alternative solution would be a challenge but it would be interesting to see if it gets overcome.

If the shale producers want to be successful and profitable , they need to make produced water, waste water, frac water a priority for recycling and re-use instead of injecting or disposing. There are companies providing these services but they need to ramp up and scale up to meet the produced water, brine and frac water yields. Technologies can be as simple as distillation (powered by solar in the Permian and other suitable regions), RO and other water recycling and treatment processes.

[ceo_energemsier + 1,818]

On 9/10/2018 at 12:57 AM, Marina Schwarz said:

It's a lot of water, I gather, so yeah, a lot of money will go into disposing of it. Could be even more if there's a quake scare or two. These have been linked by the USGS to wastewater from drilling. Given the sheer quantities of liquid, finding an alternative solution would be a challenge but it would be interesting to see if it gets overcome.

In addition to recycling the water for use again for drilling, completion and or other purposes, additional hydrocarbons (oil, condensate etc)can be recovered  during the recycling process adding a valuable revenue stream that would otherwise be lost. Add to that other technologies to recover other chemicals and minerals etc from the liquid streams creates a whole new business segment.

[ceo_energemsier + 1,818]

On 9/9/2018 at 10:21 PM, Marina Schwarz said:

Alright, it's not a secret, but it's dirty: wastewater, which is making a whole industry thrive with spending on wastewater management to reach $22 billion in five years. Meanwhile earthquakes... 

https://www.originclear.com/tech/technologies/applications/oil-and-gas

[Sebastian Meana + 278]

I mean, with supercritical CO2 fracking technologies that could be a problem of the past

[CMOP + 227]

2 hours ago, Sebastian Meana said:

I mean, with supercritical CO2 fracking technologies that could be a problem of the past

Definitely - it's extremely interesting and promising technology.

ScCO2 fracturing has been found to be more effective than hydraulic fracturing for dense reservoirs and more effective at linking up pore-micro-fissure-fracture systems. 🤘

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2095268618303082