The "Plastic Straw" Problem In The Permian; The Staggering Growth Projected For DFW -- July 29, 2019

The graphic :

The link here.

As much as $9 billion will be needed over the next decade just to throw away dirty water in the world’s busiest shale field ...

.... drillers typically pump 30 Olympic-sized swimming pools of water into an oil well to fracture the surrounding rocks. In return, as much as 10 barrels come rushing back out for every one barrel of crude

... recycling efforts aren’t robust enough to handle the 17.5 million barrels of dirty water produced DAILY in the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico

... produced water is 10 times saltier than seawater and can be tainted with heavy metals and radioactivity

“As the Permian Basin shifts further into manufacturing mode, the water growth we project will create the need for nearly 1,000 additional salt water disposal wells by 2030.”

$9 billion / 1,000 wells = $9 million. If I'm reading this correctly -- I must be missing something -- it costs $9 million to drill a SWD well in the Permian? It only costs $6 million to drill/frack a well int he Bakken. I must be missing something.

1,000 additional SWD wells. Sounds like a lot, but trivial in the big scheme of things

• 1,000/10 years = 100/year
• 120/year = 10/month

Sounds like a slow news day.

It would have been nice to see number of oil and natural gas wells projected over the same period of time.

Glad you asked. From Forbes, December 27, 2018:

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Texas Factoids

Overheard at Starbucks this morning -- from credible source:

• population of DFW metroplex, "today": 7.5 million
• growth north of Dallas: Plano, Frisco, McKinney will reach its limit (the river to the north)
• population center for the DFW metroplex by 2050: Roanoke
• population of the DFW metroplex by 2050: 50 million

I see this every time I drive from Grapevine, TX (the DFW airport) to Plano or Frisco, north of Dallas.

I see huge expansion just beginning on TX 141 west of DFW airport and north of Ft Worth, centered at the Texas Motor Speedway.