Hydraulic Fracturing Companies Begin Slow Shift to Recycling Waste water.

SOURCE: THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS | 19 AUGUST 2014

It is not just oil and natural gas that comes out of the ground here. For every barrel of oil pumped to the surface, more than another barrel of water from deep within the earth comes up alongside it.

With a hue that ranges from gray to black and an odor that resembles gasoline, the water is typically pumped into disposal wells thousands of feet underground. All the while, hydraulic fracturing operations pull billions of gallons of fresh water a year from aquifers that also supply water to cities and farms.

With a years-long drought depleting water supplies across prime drilling areas in south and west Texas, pressure on oil and gas companies has been ramping up. Early indications are the industry is slowly turning toward recycling its own wastewater, along with highly salty and undrinkable brackish water, to curb the strain of the hydraulic fracturing boom.

Data is hard to come by, but estimates are that, in places like the Eagle Ford and Permian Basin, 10 to 20% of the water being used now comes from recycling. And that number is expected to at least double over the next decade, said Marcus Gay, a water analyst at research firm IHS who has since left the company.

Apache, the Houston-based oil company, says it is no longer using fresh water at a 35,000-acre field in the Wolfcamp, one of the region’s hottest oil plays. Water there is so scarce that residents in nearby Barnhart saw their town well go dry last year.

Fasken Oil and Ranch, located outside Midland, expects to be completely off fresh water by the end of the year. Spread across 165,000 acres of sand and shrubs, the ranch has seen some of its cattle wells go dry and has been slowly developing its water recycling operation.

Through an elaborate process that involves electrodes, chemical treatments, and simple gravity, impurities are removed, and what was once wastewater is piped into a holding pond the size of six football fields. Jimmy Davis Jr., who runs the oil and gas operations at Fasken, said it might be more expensive than buying fresh water, but not by much. And the Fasken family, which bought the land in 1913, is worried about how much water is left.

“This family’s going to have this land hundreds of more years,” he said. “The technology’s nothing new. It’s the same thing they’ve been using for years in Africa to clean the drinking water.”

    Aera Energy Seeks a Cleaner Burn

A thick tile with many small holes is used to reduce emissions by ensuring quick, efficient burning of a natural gas/oxygen mixture. The system from ClearSign Combustion is expected to save energy by conducting heat more efficiently than a flame.

A major heavy oil producer in California has agreed to test a device that is designed to reduce emissions of smog-producing gases and increase the efficiency of gas burners. 

Aera Energy, a joint venture of Shell and ExxonMobil, said it has agreed to retrofit a steam-generating unit used to heat heavy oil by using a new approach from ClearSign Combustion, a small, publicly traded Seattle-based company whose mission is finding new ways to manage flames using a range of industrial processes. 

Its first offering will be tested in boilers used by Aera to create steam to reduce the viscosity of extremely thick crude so it can be pumped from the Belridge oil field in Kern County, California. 

The company said it wants to see if the technology, which is designed to achieve ultralow emissions (5 ppm) of nitrogen oxide, or NO_x, can help it meet a mandate from the San Joaquin Valley Unified Air Pollution Control District to reduce NO_x, a component in smog, to 9 ppm or less. 

The ClearSign technology is the size of the flame. Its Duplex tile technology is designed to replace methods that create flames stretching out more than 10 ft with thousands of smaller ones no more than 6 in. tall, according to videos on its website. 

The new approach performs differently because “we have mixed fuel and air prior to ignition. The oxygen will diffuse more rapidly for shorter flames,” said Rick Rutkowski, chief executive officer of ClearSign. 

The key component is the thick tile on top of a gas mixing chamber, which channels a natural gas/oxygen mix through thousands of small passageways. Faster burning at a controlled temperature in the tile’s cells is supposed to mean more efficient ignition with ultralow emissions. It is simpler than current low-emission burners that precisely manage the fuel/air mix within the flame, and often require that exhaust gases be recirculated for a second, pollution-reducing burn. 

While ClearSign’s total emissions goal is no more than 5 ppm of smog-producing nitrogen oxide and virtually no carbon monoxide, it should be lower or a fraction of the emissions from current methods, Rutkowski said. 

Also, the flames heat the tile that radiates heat more efficiently than a direct flame, making it more energy-efficient as well. The Aera test will be the first to see if it can reproduce the results from its internal testing in a larger boiler used in a commercial operation. Rutkowski said one goal is to “quantify the energy-efficiency gains,” which are thought to mean a 1% or 2% fuel saving. 

Aera said the test is expected to begin this fall “and will require several months before NO_x and thermal efficiency results are available.” 

Target markets in oil and gas exploration include the enor¬mous boilers used by oil sands producers in Canada, heater units on pipelines, and refineries in urban areas where smog caused by NO_x is a problem.

Stephen Rassenfoss is the Emerging Technology Senior Editor for the Journal of Petroleum Technology.

Oil and Gas Sector Needs to Intensify Drilling

The oil and gas industry will need to drill roughly 670,000 wells through 2020 to meet the forecast global demand, SPE (society of petroleum engineers) 2014 president jeff spath said during the opening ceremony of a Middle East conference talking place this week  in Doha, Qatar.

Speaking Monday at the Middle East Health, Safety,Environment, & Sustainable Development Conference & Exhibition, Spath cited the number of wells from a Douglas. westwood report, adding that the one of the most important components to resolving challenging upstream environments in technology. " Whether in unconventional plays or in deep water offshore, drilling is becoming increasingly challenging - requiring higher standards of performances, quality and efficiency and safety, " Spath said, " having the right technology gives us  better access to these environment and allows us to produce more safty with lower environmental impact." 

Spath also said that oil and gas industry has historically been slow to adopt new technology, typically taking 10-15 years to implement after inception."this trend will have to improve if are to keep up with the energy demand," he said.

Also speaking during the open ceremony, Qatar Energy and Industry Minister Mohammed Saleh Abdulla Al sada called on oil and gas community to help promote and develop a deep-rooted safety culture and safety environment. " the oil and gas community has to meet the health , safety , and environmental demands of today while creating sustainable commitment for tomorrow," Al said.

The ministry stressed the importance of health, safety and environmental principles within qatar  petroleum and its subsidiaries, and highlighted various success stories of the company's projects and safty was a basic component.