An Eco-Friendly and Low Carbon Footprint Water Treatment Technology for Produced Water Recycling

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdulrahman Aljedaani ◽  
Mohammed AlOtaibi ◽  
Subhash Ayirala ◽  
Ali Al-Yousef
Keyword(s):  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Produced Water ◽  
Waste Heat ◽  
Operating Cost ◽  
Water Desalination ◽  
Oil Fields ◽  
Feed Water ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Gas Wells ◽  
Oil And Gas Wells

Abstract Many challenges and limitations are experienced while treating the produced water in oil fields, due to large volumes of water produced together with oil. In this paper, we propose a new method to treat produced water, by integrating humidification and de-humidification desalination (HDH) unit with waste heat, extracted from abandoned oil and gas wells. This solution is based on circulating the produced water through abandoned wells (both vertical and horizontal wells) and heat them up to 60-80°C so that the heated water can be directly used as hot feed water into the HDH unit. This eliminates either electricity or power requirements from an external source thereby significantly lowering the energy requirements. The direct use of hot produced water at the desired temperature range allows for better performance of the HDH desalination unit, while reducing the operating cost, besides minimizing CO2 emissions to the environment. The use of heat extracted from abandoned oil and gas wells in the form of geothermal energy enables the utilization of waste heat associated with existing wells, which is already available in most of the oil fields. The proposed method therefore provides a sustainable renewable energy solution for produced water desalination using HDH processes.

scholarly journals Initial recognition of the possibilities of use abandoned oil and gas wells to desalinate produced water

2020 ◽  
Vol 154 ◽  
pp. 05002
Author(s):  
Magdalena Tyszer ◽  
Anna Chmielowska ◽  
Barbara Tomaszewska
Keyword(s):  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Produced Water ◽  
Production Method ◽  
High Energy ◽  
Water Desalination ◽  
World Knowledge ◽  
Gas Wells ◽  
New Production ◽  
Geothermal Heat ◽  
Oil And Gas Wells

Diminishing water resources, population growth and utilization energy intense processes for drinking water production lead to seek new methods of water acquisition. Desalination of seawater or/and geothermal water and also water acquisition with the utilization of abandoned oil and gas wells potentially represents promising new production method of freshwater streams. Abandoned oil and gas wells potentially can be a source of geothermal heat which can be used as a heat source for water desalination. In many countries, among others in Poland area, there are hundreds, and even thousands of abandoned exploration, research or oil/gas wells which can be adapted for other purposes, including water desalination. The aim of this paper is to conduct preliminary recognition of current world knowledge on the possibility of using abandoned oil and gas wells for geothermal purposes, including desalination of produced waters (also for drinking purposes) based on selected examples (Iran and USA). This technique is environmental-friendly and provides enough amount of energy for high-energy desalination processes (e.g. reverse osmosis), along with reducing gas emissions and consumption of conventional fuels. Based on world experience, a comprehensive assessment of the possibility of using abandoned wells for geothermal purposes in Poland should be carried out.

The Effect of Drilling Waste on Water Resources - The Elemental Composition of Waste

2017 ◽  
Vol 743 ◽  
pp. 338-341 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aleksandra Sergeevna Mishunina ◽  
Alena Andreevna Mekh ◽  
Egor Grigorevich Yazikov
Keyword(s):  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Oil Fields ◽  
Anthropogenic Sources ◽  
Natural Environments ◽  
Gas Wells ◽  
Drill Cuttings ◽  
Chemical Substances ◽  
Drilling Waste ◽  
Oil And Gas Wells ◽  
Tomsk Region

In order to maintain the volume of oil and gas supplies, the number of oil and gas wells increases every year, drilling platforms are built, which proportionally increases the amount of sludge and drilling waste mud, which must be recycled. The research gives light to the danger of introducing chemical substances into various natural environments from industrial and anthropogenic sources on an example of drill cuttings from oil fields of Tomsk region.

Emerging investigator series: radium accumulation in carbonate river sediments at oil and gas produced water discharges: implications for beneficial use as disposal management

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 324-338 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bonnie McDevitt ◽  
Molly McLaughlin ◽  
Charles A. Cravotta ◽  
Moses A. Ajemigbitse ◽  
Katherine J. Van Sice ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Surface Water ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Produced Water ◽  
River Sediments ◽  
Gas Wells ◽  
Beneficial Use ◽  
Oil And Gas Wells

In the western U.S., produced water from oil and gas wells discharged to surface water augments downstream supplies used for irrigation and livestock watering.

Geothermal Production from Existing Oil and Gas Wells: A Sustainable Repurposing Model

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oscar Mauricio Molina ◽  
Camilo Mejia ◽  
Mayank Tyagi ◽  
Felipe Medellin ◽  
Hani Elshahawi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Financial Success ◽  
Gas Wells ◽  
Modeling Framework ◽  
Heat Potential ◽  
Geological Conditions ◽  
Oil And Gas Wells

Abstract The geothermal energy industry has never quite realized its true potential despite the seemingly magical promise of nonstop, 24/7 renewable energy sitting just below the surface of the Earth. In this paper, we discuss an integrated cloud-based workflow aimed at evaluating the cost-effectiveness of adopting geothermal production in low to medium enthalpy systems by either repurposing existing oil and gas wells or by co-producing thermal and fossil energy. The workflow introduces an automated and intrinsically secure decision-making process to convert mature oil and gas wells into geothermal wells, enabling both operational and financial assessment of the conversion process, whether partial or complete. The proposed workflow focuses on the reliability and transparency of fully automated technical processes for the geological, hydrodynamic, and mechanical configuration of the production system to ensure the financial success of the conversion project, in terms of heat production potential and cost of development. The decision-making portion of the workflow comprises the technical, social, environmental factors driving the return on investment for the total or partial conversion of wells to geothermal production. These components are evaluated using artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms that reduce bias in the decision-making process. The automated workflow involves assessment of the following: Heat Potential: A data-driven model to determine the geothermal heat potential using geological conditions from basin modeling and data from offset wells.Flow Modeling: An ultra-fast, physics-based modeling approach to determine pressure and temperature changes along wellbores to model fluid flow potential, thermal flux, and injection operations.Mechanical Integrity: Casing and completions integrity and configuration are embedded in the process for flow rates modeling.Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG): A decision modeling framework is setup to ensure the transparent validation of the technical components and ESG factors, including potential for water pollution, carbon emissions, and social factors such as induced seismicity and ambient noise levels The assurance of key ESG metrics will ensure a viable and sustainable transition into a globally available low-carbon source of energy such as geothermal. Our novel cloud- based automated decision-making environment incorporates a blockchain framework to ensure transparency of technical-related processes and tasks, driving the financial success of the conversion project. Ultimately, our automated workflow is designed to encourage and support the widespread adoption of low-carbon energy in the oil and gas industry.

scholarly journals Produced Water Desalination via Pervaporative Distillation

Water ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 3560
Author(s):  
Jingbo Wang ◽  
Dian Tanuwidjaja ◽  
Subir Bhattacharjee ◽  
Arian Edalat ◽  
David Jassby ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Produced Water ◽  
Operating Mode ◽  
Porous Membrane ◽  
Membrane Distillation ◽  
Operating Conditions ◽  
Water Desalination ◽  
Feed Water ◽  
Water Composition ◽  
Salt Passage

Herein, we report on the performance of a hybrid organic-ceramic hydrophilic pervaporation membrane applied in a vacuum membrane distillation operating mode to desalinate laboratory prepared saline waters and a hypersaline water modeled after a real oil and gas produced water. The rational for performing “pervaporative distillation” is that highly contaminated waters like produced water, reverse osmosis concentrates and industrial have high potential to foul and scale membranes, and for traditional porous membrane distillation membranes they can suffer pore-wetting and complete salt passage. In most of these processes, the hard to treat feed water is commonly softened and filtered prior to a desalination process. This study evaluates pervaporative distillation performance treating: (1) NaCl solutions from 10 to 240 g/L at crossflow Reynolds numbers from 300 to 4800 and feed-temperatures from 60 to 85 °C and (2) a real produced water composition chemically softened to reduce its high-scale forming mineral content. The pervaporative distillation process proved highly-effective at desalting all feed streams, consistently delivering <10 mg/L of dissolved solids in product water under all operating condition tested with reasonably high permeate fluxes (up to 23 LMH) at optimized operating conditions.

scholarly journals Geochemical data for produced waters from conventional and unconventional oil and gas wells: Results from Colorado, USA

2019 ◽  
Vol 98 ◽  
pp. 03002
Author(s):  
Yousif Kharaka ◽  
Kathleen Gans ◽  
James Thordsen ◽  
Madalyn Blondes ◽  
Mark Engle
Keyword(s):  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Produced Water ◽  
Geochemical Data ◽  
Chemical Compositions ◽  
Gas Wells ◽  
Horizontal Drilling ◽  
Unconventional Oil ◽  
Oil And Gas Wells ◽  
Unconventional Oil And Gas ◽  
Produced Waters

Geochemical data for more than 120,000 oil and natural gas wells from the major sedimentary basins in the USA are listed in the USGS National Produced Waters Geochemical Database [1]. In this summary, we report and discuss the geochemical data on produced waters obtained from published literature and the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC) from close to 4,000 new oil and gas wells in Colorado. We emphasize geochemical data of produced waters from shale and tight reservoirs that have increased dramatically in Colorado since 2011, due to deep horizontal drilling, downhole telemetry and massive multi-stage hydraulic fracturing. These operations require large volumes of fresh water, but contamination of groundwater is the major environmental concern. Also, induced seismicity caused by water injection has been reported from several areas in Colorado, including Trinidad, Raton basin, and Greely, Denver basin. Produced water salinities in Colorado obtained from unconventional oil and gas wells are relatively low, generally less than 30,000 mg/L TDS. Produced water salinities from conventional oil and gas wells overlap those from unconventional wells, but many wells have higher salinities (up to 90,000 mg/L TDS) and different chemical compositions.

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