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.

Produced Water -- BR -- October 6, 2020

This phenomenon was brought to my attention by a reader about a year ago, maybe two years ago. Time flies when having fun.

The well:

• 34058, 541, BR, Kermit 8-8-32MBH, Pershing, t8/18; cum 241K 8/20; fracked 7/1/19 7/9/19; 7.1 million gallons of water; 87.7% water by mass;

Look at the rate of produced water in this well (see this post): 

BR pumped 169,000 bbls of water down this well for fracking. Look how slowly BR allowed "produced water" to return to the surface. This is simply incredible. After the frack:

• month 1: 7K bbls
• month: 2: 10K
• month 3: 7K
• month 4: 6K
• month 5: 5K
  
• month 6: --
• month 7: --
• month 8: 3K
• month 9: 9K
• month 10: 2K
• month: 11: 5K
• month 12: 0K

Compared to what I'm seeing by most operators, this is absolutely incredible.

An unintended (positive) consequence: a lot less "craziness" with regard to taking all that produced water away in the first six months; BR "flattens that curve" over two years. 

Waste To Water -- From Basin To Basin, Oil And Gas Water Dilemma Grows As Production Booms -- Carlsbad (NM) Current Argus -- September 22, 2019

Link here.

If you have time to read only one article about unconventional oil this week, consider this article from Current Argus - Carlsbad. Archived.

Everything you could possibly want to know about waste water from shale operations.

From a New Mexico perspective:

We sent a reporter from the Carlsbad Current-Argus and a photojournalist from the Las Cruces Sun-News on a weeklong tour to North Dakota's Bakken region and Pennsylvania's Marcellus Basin to study how oil and gas' waste water dilemma is managed in two vastly different oil and gas fields. 

Reposting this link: the tour of the various oil fields. 

Wow, I hope these links are never lost. This is clearly worth the price you pay for the subscription to the MillionDollarWay.

Answer To Pop Quiz -- August 5, 2019

Question: conventional wells or unconventional wells -- which have a higher ratio of produced water, conventional wells or unconventional wells? What is the ratio of produced water-to-oil in conventional wells compared to that of unconventional wells? [PWOR = produced water-to-oil water.]

The answer will be posted Monday, August 4, 2019, sometime during the day after I get caught up with the news that came out over the weekend.

Originally posted here, so some answers/replies will be at that post. 

On another note, 99.9999999%+ Americans can be thankful they had an uneventful weekend. Huge condolences to the families in Dayton, OH, and El Paso, TX.

Answer: conventional wells. And it's not even a close call. [Later, see this post also.]

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Best Answer From A Reader

Your question regarding produced water is significant for several reasons. Conventional, vertical production may have 90 to 99 barrels of water for every single barrel of oil produced as a routine matter for older wells.

This is the single biggest expense in low producers and is the main determinant of when to permanently plug a well.

Unconventional in the Bakken is frequently in the 1 bbl water /1 bbl oil range which is pretty remarkable and a huge influence on the long term positive economic potential.

Water handling (for frac'ing in LTO, disposal in conventional and unconventional) is a big component in oil development operations.

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Source From The Literature

This is what caught my attention and why I asked the question.

This is a screenshot of the abstract from an article published in 2017 with regard to the Permian.

The third sentence in that abstract: our results show that although conventional wells produce about 13 times more water than oil ... [a]lthough unconventional wells have a much lower PWOR of 3 versus 13 from conventional wells ...

This is the link to that article: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.7b02185. At the link you can download the pdf.

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Produced Water Vs Flowback

A reader asked the question: what is the difference, if there is a difference, between produced water and flowback. The reader who best answered the original question, also provided this answer regarding produced water and flowback:

On whether flowback is same as produced water?

It is not, but I can not offer any legally/technically precise definition with which to precisely distinguish one from the other.

In the early Bakken years (probably Eagle Ford and Niobrara also), huge amounts of the frac fluid would be somewhat rapidly - within a few days' time - removed from the newly frac'd well. This was partially motivated in not wanting the formation to absorb the water, swell and inhibit production.

In the last 2 to 3 years, it is obvious that operators are maintaining VERY high quantities of frac water underground for SEVERAL months and the now-surfacing water is labelled as flowback. (The earlier years' rapid flowback was - to my knowledge - never officially recorded). This is why when the recent wells' production profiles show 200,000/250,000 barrels produced water first 5 months, purposeful underground retention is indicated.

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For me, I apologize to readers. To some extent this was a "trick question." Everyone writing about fracking, including me, writes about the huge amount of water being used to frack the wells. So I was quite surprised to see how much water is actually used in conventional wells.

For me this was incredibly important: with the recent discussion of porosity and permeability, there were sidebar issues regarding water. If oil producers seem hassled by natural gas / flaring, I would imagine that issue pales in comparison to the problem they have with water.

Along with everything else about water in that linked PWOR study, there was a footnote in one of the replies to the porosity / permeability issue with regard to how Saudi Arabia almost "lost"one of their best fields due to water channeling.

So, I apologize for the trick question, but, wow, I sure learned a lot.

Produced Water Problem In The Permian -- June 30, 2018

There are many issues associated with produced water, everything from economics for a single well; to economics for a US shale producer; and, then, the environmental cost and the issue of injected-related earthquakes.

My takeaway from all this:

• the Bakken is in much, much better shape compared to the Permian with regard to produced water
• in fact, there may be no comparison
• the Bakken has been dealing with this issue for the past ten years
• the Bakken has nowhere near the amount of produced water that the Permian has
• the Permian, in boom stage right now, will get worse before it gets better
• the Bakken, in the "manufacturing stage," has probably been through the worst
• Permian production (oil and water) is likely to increase significantly
• Bakken production may be near steady-state levels

I don't know how many caught this from FracFocus yesterday. It was the first time I noticed it, but it's likely there are other examples that I simply missed.

Look at the frack data for this well, from FracFocus:

• 17100, 240, CLR, Mountain Gap 31-10H, Rattlesnake Point, t6/08; cum 123K 5/18; 
• original frack, May 30, 2008; open hole, 1.1 million lbs sand;
• more recently, 17 days of 26,682 production extrapolates to 47,000 bbls over 30 days; API 33-025-00734; according to FracFocus, this well was fracked in Jan/Feb, 2018 (recently); 9.97 million lbs of water, but look at this:
• water: 70.797%
• sand: 11.85%
• produced brine water: 4.85%
• those percentages add up to 87.49%
• I can't account for the other 12%
• the chemical cocktail is very, very small, maybe a percent or two 

The reason I bring that up is the subject of the article in North American Shale. Data points:

• produced water is becoming a significant problem in the Permian
• what to do with it
• people talk about the "produced water" problem in the Bakken, but look at this data, with regard to the ratio of produced water (to crude oil, I assume):
• DJ (Basin): might be 1:1
• Delaware Basin (the "most prolific basin" in the Permian):
• generally, 4:1
• extreme cases, 7:1
• worst cases: 10: 1
• the Permian operators are dealing with an unprecedented amount of produced water
• could impact pricing by as much as $6/bbl

More:

What’s different now it that unconventional development in the Permian doesn’t allow for the same water management practices. By that I mean if you’re drilling conventional wells, most of the produced water can be reinjected for water floods or EOR (enhanced oil recovery). Whereas now, the operators, many are testing some of the tertiary recovery techniques, but nothing’s being done on a wide scale.

Note: it's my understanding that water flooding unconventional tight shale could end up turning the clay into gumbo -- i.e., a failed well. 

I've never tracked produced water in the Bakken, but a quick look at a few wells suggest the ratio is "never" worse than 1:1 (see below). Often, after the initial "regurgitation" after the initial frack, produced water drops off significantly, but then may increase as the well ages.

From BTU Analytics, 2014 . When you look at this graphic, remember, the Permian produced a whole less oil than it is producing today (one cannot say the same thing for the Bakken):

From researchgate:

• Two graphics. The first graphic without any additional markings; the second graphic is the same with my annotations since it is hard to read. This is water to oil ratio during initial production; that often changes significantly after well matures:

For additional reading, the best one for the Permian is the "pubs - 7b02185" link below:

• JPT, one year ago, June, 2017
• The Bismarck Tribune, 2014
• pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acs.est.7b02185 -- the Permian, scientific article from 2017; will likely load a PDF on your desktop

What Will Permian Operators Do With All That Produced Water? -- RBN Energy -- June 12, 2017

RBN Energy: what are "we" going to do with all that produced water?

Today most produced water moves off the lease in trucks, although producers are now increasing their investment in produced water-gathering and transportation systems to move the barrels to centralized facilities and disposal wells. But here’s the bottom line: it costs just about as much to move a barrel of water as it costs to move a barrel of oil.

And there is a lot more water than oil coming from a given well. The implication is that the largest single cost of operating a well — sometimes more than half of total operating cost — is produced-water disposal. That is a number that can impact producer economics and thus capex investment plans, drilling activity and production growth.

Worse yet, there is concern in some quarters that the sheer volume of produced water may eventually overwhelm the ability of the network of facilities and disposal wells to keep up with crude oil production, resulting in a constraint on growth in the Permian. In the next blog in this series we will examine the costs of produced water disposal and how those costs may affect Permian crude oil development over the next few years.

Active rigs:

$46.05	6/12/2017	06/12/2016	06/12/2015	06/12/2014	06/12/2013
Active Rigs	52	28	76	185	187

Back To The Water Issue In The Bakken -- It's Still Not An Issue -- Those Working Outdoors In The Mud Tend To Use More Water Than Office Workers -- DOE's Argonne National Laboratory -- May 21, 2016

Somehow this research doesn't quite measure up to what I would expect to come out of the Argonne National Laboratory. The laboratory has an incredibly rich nuclear energy history.

Maybe not so much any more if measured by this article in which the laboratory noted that blue collar workers, working in the outdoors, in the mud, tend to use more water on a daily basis than office workers.

The article also fails to note that these workers are not paying for their water on a usage basis; it comes as part of the "hotel" daily or weekly or monthly charge. The study also does not note that even if they did pay by usage, these guys would well afford it, being paid 1.5x, 2x, maybe as much as 5x what an office worker would get paid.

Before you get to deep into the article, this buried deep in the story:

Most of the water used in the North Dakota Bakken comes from Lake Sakakawea. Recent increases in the lake's water use due to population growth and oil development are not currently an issue in terms of continued availability.

Yes, that is correct: water remains a non-issue in the Bakken, and especially now that all the temporary workers have left and fracking has come to a standstill.

But this does take me back to my numerous posts early on with the data showing that water use in the Bakken was negligible compared to the amount released daily by the US Army Corps of Engineers.

It took me about 15 minutes to do that "research," and it cost the taxpayer nothing for my services.

Back to the linked article. The writer talks about three issues:

• water used in initial fracking (the writer doesn't mention that ND is advocating "produced water" for fracking
• freshwater for well maintenance (required for the life of the well)
• personal freshwater use by temporary oil workers

I can't make this stuff up.

This is an incredibly important piece of research however:

• it becomes a footnote in the history of the Bakken; and,
• it pretty much ensures that the Argonne folks won't come back to re-visit this story any time soon.

Hey, by the way, I posted a note on "freshwater for well maintenance" back in 2013. I'll be contacting Argonne to see if I was cited in their research. I don't expect to hear back.

Argonne Laboratory: a 2016 Geico Rock Award nominee?

I still get a kick out of learning that folks working in the mud tend to use more water than office workers.

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Water May Not Be An Issue In The Bakken, But ...

Lake Mead is setting new records -- but records we don't want to see.  The lake has declined to lowest levels in history.

As of Thursday afternoon, the lake’s level stood at an elevation of about 1,074.6 feet. The federal Bureau of Reclamation, which manages the reservoir and Hoover Dam, projects the level to decline a few feet more to an elevation of about 1,071 feet by the end of June, before the level begins to rise again with releases of water from Lake Powell.

Under the federal guidelines that govern reservoir operations, the Interior Department would declare a shortage if Lake Mead’s level is projected to be below 1,075 feet as of the start of the following year. In its most recent projections, the Bureau of Reclamation calculated the odds of a shortage at 10 percent in 2017, while a higher likelihood – 59 percent – at the start of 2018.

But those estimates will likely change when the bureau releases a new study in August. Rose Davis, a public affairs officer for the Bureau of Reclamation, said if that study indicates the lake’s level is going to be below the threshold as of Dec. 31, a shortage would be declared for 2017.

California has nothing to worry about:

That would lead to significant cutbacks for Arizona and Nevada. California, which holds the most privileged rights to water from the Colorado River, would not face reductions until the reservoir hits a lower trigger point.

Actually my hunch is that if there are significant cutbacks for Phoenix, Tucson, and Las Vegas but not for California, the cities and the states will sue. It would likely end up at the US Supreme Court but based on recent history, if the court remains at 4 - 4 split, it's unlikely to take the case.

The 4 - 4 court has ruled that contracts can be broken by midstream operators/MLPs in bankruptcy proceedings, or something to that effect -- I saw the headline about two weeks ago, but did not read the article. Nothing surprises me any more. Laws and contracts were meant to be broken, I guess.

Yeah, Didn't The Romans Salt Carthage? And Something Special For Warmists -- Seven Global Warming "Truthisms" Observed In 2013

Link here (to Carthage). LOL.

Seriously, this is an accident waiting to happen. Three million (that's a "3" with six zeroes on the end) gallons of saltwater sitting in storage tanks for each well that is going to be fracked. If there are 6 wells on a pad, one could imagine almost 20 million gallons of salt water on some farmer's wheat farm.

The Bismarck Tribune is reporting:

Statoil received the OK this week to proceed with a test that will use produced water – waste water that is a byproduct of oil production – for fracking operations at a well site north of Williston.

Reusing the wastewater will save about 6.5 million gallons of freshwater for the two oil wells at the test site, said Russell Rankin, regional manager for Statoil.

Statoil did a small-scale test in 2012 to determine if produced water from the Bakken, which has a very high salinity content, could be used for fracking. The test used Halliburton’s technology known as CleanWave to treat the water.

On another note, after reading the description of CleanWave at the linked site, think of all the science projects the Williston High School students could present at the annual "Science Fair." My favorite was observing how plants grow while being exposed to loud "rock" music.  LOL.

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A Note To The Granddaughters

Two stories.

First: 2013 Will Finish One Of The Ten Coldest Years In US History, With The Largest Drop In Temperature.

Second: The seventeenth year of no global warming. Seventeen years! An inconvenient truth.

This year has been trying for climate scientists and environmentalists who have been trying hard to explain away the 17-year hiatus in global warming and link “extreme weather” to rising greenhouse gas emissions — despite strong evidence to the contrary. There has been a breakdown in the manmade global warming consensus, and some even argue we are headed for an ice age.

The linked story provides seven -- count 'em -- seven "setbacks for the warmists.

The cockles of my heart are warmed.

Recycling Frack Water -- "Produced Water"

Updates

December 24, 2013: Rigzone is reporting (unfortunately, a long article that didn't say much) --

Water recycling represents a major opportunity for firms that provide equipment and services to the shale gas industry, according to Johan Pfeiffer, FMC Technologies Inc. vice president for Surface Technologies.

And the opportunity is greater outside of the United States in countries where the cost of water disposal is high due to geographical and regulatory pressures, Pfeiffer said in a presentation to Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co.'s Global Shale Conference in London at the end of November.

Speaking about the shale gas industry from an oilfield services point of view, Pfeiffer noted: "The operators in North America are trying to get as much production as possible out of the well pad. In order to do this, they use increasing complexity in the well that provides an opportunity for service providers."

July 14, 2013: Halliburton's process for recycling frack water is called "H20Forward."

"If you really think about it," he continued, "as an industry we make more water than we make hydrocarbons. In fact, we make about 3-5 barrels of water per barrel of hydrocarbons." Some have told him that their primary job was to produce water, and oil was the byproduct.

In spite of a literal flood of produced water available, it historically has been injected, at certain cost, instead of being reused in the fracturing process because it was "too dirty." With unacceptable amounts of total dissolve solids (TDS) and total suspended solids (TSS) it would clog formations instead of placing proppants and opening formations to the flow of hydrocarbons.

Before Dale went to Halliburton he worked for a water treatment company that was asked by a client to develop a way to use city effluent in cooling towers. As Dale pondered the question, including costs to clean the water, then to dispose of those removed substances, it came to him: "When we looked at the economics, we realized that, what if we just change the chemistry that allows them to use that water so you don't have to take stuff out?" He referred to this as "impaired waters." The price point changed dramatically when those costs were figured.

Halliburton's product/service is called H2O Forward "that allows customers to take these waste streams and use them for the supply chain needs," Dale explained. He was quick to point out that this does include some water treatment, but due to changes in frac fluids, the water requires much less treatment than does water processed for use with conventional fluids.

Original Post 

I've posted once or twice about "produced water" -- recycled frack water. Don sent me the link to an article on the subject.

PrairieBizMagazine is reporting:

About 40 percent of the water used for fracking flows back to the well surface, but re-using that water is made difficult due to its high saline content, according to research conducted by the Energy & Environmental Research Center at the University of North Dakota. Therefore, water used for fracking is primarily fresh water, and flowback water is treated before being disposed of in deep injection wells.

There is more background at the link, but here is where it gets interesting:

In March, Halliburton announced that it has commercialized technology to recycle frack flowback water, which the company refers to as produced water, and that it has completed more than 60 wells and 280 fracturing stages in the Permian and Bakken formations using this approach. According to the company, the technology uses electricity to destabilize and coagulate contaminants in the water, which can then be removed, allowing for the remaining water to be re-used for fracking.

Walter Dale, Halliburton global strategic business manager – water management solutions, says the technology’s commercialization represents a “paradigm shift” in the need for fresh water for fracking operations. “This is no longer a technical issue; this is a function of logistics,” he said in a statement. “Customers can now use produced water on unconventional wells with no loss of well productivity at a net economic benefit while minimizing the overall environmental impact.”

Halliburton says its technology has been proven to save up to $400,000 per well in the Bakken.

I assume others will research the technology including Heckmann-->Nuveera Environmental Solutions.

But it looks like it is time for a new tag: produced_water.

By the way, the linked article at PrairieBiz referenced a Halliburton-electricity-based process. There is also a vortex-based process which will work nicely for cleaning oil from oil spills into flowing water, such as rivers.