Downhole Oil - Water Separation -- In The Bakken? August 31, 2021

From wiki.

A feasibility study, dated January, 1999, mentioned the Bakken and the Williston Basin. 

The summary:

Downhole oil–water separation (DOWS) technology is an emerging technology that separates oil and gas from produced water at the bottom of the well, and re-injects most of the produced water into another formation which is usually deeper than the producing formation, while the oil and gas rich stream is pumped to the surface.

Connecting the dots. For newbies, the Three Forks is deeper than the middle Bakken in the Williston Basin.

Could produced water work? Have we seen instances of produced water being used in the Bakken to frack wells? Yes. I noted one operator using produced water to frack wells a while back. Time to go back and look at some of those posts. See tags.

Huge Notice Regarding MRO Fracks -- January 3, 2021

Last year I noted a number of MRO wells fracked with extremely small amounts of water, "by mass on a per cent basis." Tonight, some of the mystery is explained. I did not notice it until tonight.

In general, one can expect the amount of water used in a Bakken frack to be somewhere between 83% and 95% by mass. The most common range seems to be 88% to 93%.

Sometime last year I noted that the percentage of water used in some MRO completions was very low, around 55%. 

Tonight, I noted that those wells fracked with "55% water by mass" was more likely to be:

• 55% fresh water by mass; and, supplemented with
• 20% produced water by mass.

I'll go back and correct those wells with "low" amounts of water used to frack a well, but until I get that done (and I probably won't correct all of them) assume that any MRO well fracked with less than 71% water by mass, probably means that an additional amount of produced water, by about 20% supplemented the fresh water. 

It looks like the total amount of water used by MRO in this new (2020) completion strategy has not changed, but the "mix" has changed, to include a significant amount of produced water. 

So, the error is on me.

I'm just glad I caught it when I did.