On Water... Organic Contaminants

After a little hiatus, we are back with part two of our series on flowback water treatment issues and technology. After water, sand and dissolved solids the next are of interest to all are the free and dissolved hydrocarbons present in the flowback and producted water.

The driller actually adds very little of these compounds into the frac liquids going down the well. While no recipe is the same, the only real hydrocarbons used today tend to be the glycols used in descaling and some light petroleum distillates for viscosity enhancement. Together these would represent less than 0.1% of the frac liquid volume.

The flowback on the other hand has been known to contain "some" free and dissolved hydrocarbons, that come from the formation itself. Rationally, this makes sense as the frac fluids are held under very high pressure for long periods of time to fracture the well prior to flowback. This would give the compound present in the formation both time and energy to dissolve into the flowback water. Many of these are lighter than water therefore they rise up with flowback. There concentrations are very low in the flowback (normally), typically below 100 parts per million.

The good news is that regardless of concentration, these compounds can and are removed easily with a range of filtration and adsorption equipment readily available to any operator. Technologies such as oil absorbents and physical adsorbent media like activated carbon are inexpensive and provide for easy removal efficiency. These companies are already present in the shale and have off of the shelf technology that can be mobilized to a site in hours, not days or weeks. These technologies have been serving the chemical, manufacturing and related industries for years in this region and the infrastructure is already present to take advantage of these new markets.

This is a positive on two fronts. First, if the water is to be recycled in the fracking operation the removal of these compounds is important to ensure the highest water quality available for the next hydraulic fracture. In the event the this water is to be send off for disposal, the removal of all of the dissolved and free organics is particularly important as the water will be discharged eventually under very strict EPA regulations already in existence. (The National Pollution Discharge Elimination System - NPDES). Every state runs their own NPDES permitting system and any facility with a discharge permit must meet strict discharge guidelines.

As I mentioned in an earlier piece, none of the contaminants found in the flowback water are ones that the water treatment industry has never dealt with or managed. As the drilling continues, so will the continued growth of service firms to assist the drillers with their water management.



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Comment by Frank Verret on June 30, 2010 at 6:54am
Micheal

What about DOWS down hole oil/gas and water separation technology. This would alleviate the need to bring produced water back to the surface. I have questions as to how a well would be classified if it was both a producing and disposal well all in one. What is your take.
Comment by Michael Havelka on June 21, 2010 at 8:47am
As I said, I don't know how that situation works as I am not on that side. I am also not saying "trust the system" either, as we all know that bad things CAN happen. What I am saying is that all of this water is now tracked 100% in both WV and PA, with facility discharge permits required anywhere water is taken. I can also say that in 3 years in this play, I have never seen a firm illegally dump water... period. They have too much to lose by doing it and the costs of getting caught FAR outstrip the cost of doing it right.
Comment by daniel cohen on June 21, 2010 at 8:43am
Dear Michel, Are you saying to just trust the system and that the water regulations will ensure that the land & landowners are being properly protected? That procedure got a lot of folks into bad situations, and many on this site have made a point for the landowner to do his homework to make certain that all protections needed are in place.
With that in mind, shouldn't we as landowners be able to get the information?
Dan
Comment by Michael Havelka on June 21, 2010 at 8:35am
While I am not sure of the mechanics of the landowner/driller relationship, I can say that today a great percentage of the water is moving off-site to companies that have multiple technologies employed to treat the water before reuse. (other than TDS). I can also say with relative assurance that the new water regulations in PA will ensure that this is the case moving forward.
Comment by daniel cohen on June 21, 2010 at 4:07am
How can a landowner find out if the driller is using these filtration techniques to treat the flowback?
Dan

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