Water is a key ingredient in the application of well stimulation technologies associated with hydraulic fracturing. It is not uncommon for &gt;300 thousand barrels of water to be used during fracturing operations in a single well. Many reservoirs also have high water-to-oil (WOR) ratios that complicate production, separations and water management activities.  Therefore, water balance management is a major challenge for oil & gas operators. An opportunity for reducing unit delivery costs (UDC) related to oil production is to recycle the water (known as produced water) recovered from the reservoir. This can be a daunting task since produced water typically contains dissolved salts, sulfides, iron, inorganic scale and trace amounts of chemicals and hydrocarbons. Bacteria growth can also be prevalent due to short-term storage. Despite these complications, successful implementation of a produced water recycle treatment protocol can provide an economic advantage to an operator. This presentation will focus on the results from a recent field trial for recycling produced water including the challenges experienced, the chemical treatment technologies applied, and optimized performance achieved during the operational trial.

Effective methods for treating and recycling produced water in unconventional oil operations

255th National Meeting (2018)

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