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Focused Research
in Federal Lands Access and Produced Water management in Oil and Gas Exploration
and Production Title: Area of Interest
2: Produced Water management Practices |
| PROJECT
DESCRIPTION Title: A Guide to Practical Management of Produced Water from Onshore Oil and Gas Operations in the United States Applicant: The Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission (IOGCC) is the principal investigator and will be partnering with ALL Consulting, the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, the Kansas Corporation Commission, the Montana Board of Oil and Gas Conservation, and Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. Problem: To date little has been done to characterize produced water quality and management practices for the handling, treating and disposing of produced water from conventional oil and gas operations throughout the industry nationwide. Water produced from these operations vary greatly in quality and quantity and is often the single largest barrier to the economic viability of wells. The lack of data, coupled with renewed emphasis on domestic oil and gas development, has prompted many experts to speculate that the number of wells drilled over the next 20 years will approach 3 million, or near the number of current wells. This level of exploration and development will undoubtedly draw the attention of the environmental community, focusing their concerns on produced water management based on perceived potential impacts to fresh water resources. Therefore it is imperative that produced water management practices be performed in a manner which best minimizes environmental impacts. Objective: To identify, verify and compile current best management practices for produced water from conventional oil and gas operations and to develop a GIS based analysis tool to assist in the understanding of watershed issued permits thereby allowing management costs to be kept in-line with the specific projects and regions which increases the productive life of wells and increases the ultimate recoverable reserves in the ground. Scope and Methodology: Our team proposes to address this lack of data by developing both hardcopy and web-based tools capable of delineating proven handling practices from regional, regulatory, economic and water quality perspectives. Our project will evaluate produced water management from a holistic standpoint including beneficial use, water resource impacts, pre-release treatment, and regulatory issues. The research envisioned will leverage existing DOE studies and investigative field research to identify specific parameters of environmentally characterized regions of study. We will conduct a series of studies designed to identify, verify and compile existing and newly developed management techniques associated with the handling, treating and disposal of produced water. Our team will visit and interview various oil and gas facility representatives from different regions to document and substantiate their management practices and evaluate the pros and cons of each practice. This data will then be assessed to develop statistical outcomes regarding applicability, functionality, treatability and economic impact, as they relate to changing characteristics of production, water quality and regional conditions. The project will also present methods and tools that should be considered when preparing a water management plan, including the use of geographic information systems, publicly available data, Internet Resources, and other options for obtaining source data for analysis. We will also conduct a case study in Wyoming to validate the applicability of the GIS analysis tool for watershed evaluations under real world conditions. The results of our partnered research will be shared utilizing proven methods, such as ALLs' web hosting of prior DOE project results, hardcopy distribution of documented case studies, and development of reference and handbook components to accompany the interactive internet-based GIS watershed analysis tool. The project web-page, besides containing the project documents, will include a repository of best practices for produced water management, capable of being dynamically updated by authorized users so state-of-the-art information is maintained. This web site, combined with several technology transfer seminars and presentations, will address many of the data gaps currently being experienced by oil and gas operations across the United States. |
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Prepared for the U.S. Department of Energy National Petroleum Technology Office | |
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