As the number of unconventional oil and gas wells in the U.S. continues to rise, water management is increasingly becoming a concern for operators. In many basins across the U.S. drilling is taking place further away from freshwater sources, surface water and groundwater supplies are stressed, and regulations are limiting wastewater disposal. It would benefit operators greatly to have pipelines in place to transport large amounts of water economically across plays.
Flowback water, water used in fracking that flows back to the surface, and produced water, water that flows with produced oil and gas during the life of the well, has been historically transported by truck to either treatment facilities or disposal wells. Transporting wastewater by truck is costly for operators, and problematic to the environment, existing infrastructure, and communities.
High volumes of truck traffic has generated issues related to road maintenance, dust generation, air emissions, and truck congestion. Trucks typically can haul 120 – 160 barrels per truck making the task of moving an ever-growing volume of produced water increasingly expensive for operators as well due to the total volumes of water used as illustrated in Figure 1. In the Marcellus for instance, trucks have to travel long distances to dispose of wastewater in Ohio as it is difficult to get approval for new salt water disposal wells in Pennsylvania. We have already seen a shift towards building out pipeline infrastructure in some regions as in Texas where the Texas Department of Transportation is offering rights-of-way for pipelines to encourage the use of pipelines to reduce the number of trucks on the road.
Figure 1: Water use for hydraulic fracturing in million barrels per day
As it becomes increasingly difficult to build new oil and gas pipelines due to regulatory pressures and community pushback, it may serve midstream players better to focus on midstream infrastructure for wastewater as local governments are more accepting and willing to work with midstream companies to reduce truck traffic. As a result, the number of pipelines used to collect and aggregate wastewater to storage, treatment, and disposal sites has been increasing. The push towards centralized wastewater treating facilities has also increased the need for wastewater infrastructure as even larger amounts of water will need to be transported to the same location. Large centralized wastewater treating facilities are needed as small and mobile treatment systems will not be a viable answer for mid- and large size operators who have intensive water needs.
Disposal wells will always be crucial to shale developments and operators are planning long-term strategies to reduce their wastewater costs. Investing in pipelines is a long-term water management solution which will significantly reduce the costs associated with hauling wastewater as it will be more economical to transport sourced water and aggregate disposal water. It will be difficult to entirely recycle produced and flowback water but as the volumes of water and the costs associated with managing wastewater rise, there is an opportunity to provide turnkey wastewater management solutions as the wastewater needs to be transported to either a treatment facility or a disposal well.
-Brandon Johnson
