scholarly journals Evaluation of a Minimum Liquid Discharge (MLD) Desalination Approach for Management of Unconventional Oil and Gas Produced Waters with a Focus on Waste Minimization

Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (20) ◽  
pp. 2912
Author(s):  
Ganesh L. Ghurye
Keyword(s):  
Solid Waste ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Liquid Waste ◽  
Delaware Basin ◽  
Liquid Discharge ◽  
Thermal Desalination ◽  
Unconventional Oil And Gas ◽  
Produced Waters ◽  
Insoluble Compounds ◽  
The Cost

The objective of this research study was to evaluate the feasibility of using a minimum liquid discharge (MLD) desalination approach as an alternate management option for unconventional produced waters (PWs) with a focus on minimizing the generation of solid waste. The feasibility of MLD was evaluated using OLI, a water chemistry software, to model thermal desalination of unconventional PWs from the Delaware Basin in New Mexico (NM). Desalination was theoretically terminated at an evaporation point before halite (NaCl) saturation in the residual brine. Results of this study showed that selectively targeting a subset of higher flow rate and lower TDS wells/centralized tank batteries (CTBs) could yield up to 76% recovery of distillate while generating minimal solid waste. Using a selective MLD approach did reduce the quantity of distillate recovered when compared with ZLD, and left a reduced volume of residual brine which has to be managed as a liquid waste. However, selective MLD also greatly reduced the amount of solid waste. The use of a ZLD approach yielded incrementally greater quantities of distillate but at the cost of large quantities of difficult-to-manage highly soluble waste. Simulation results showed that waste generated before NaCl precipitation was primarily composed of insoluble compounds such as calcite, barite and celestite, which can be disposed in conventional landfills. This study also found a simple empirical linear relationship between TDS and distillate recovery, thus allowing a non-expert to rapidly estimate potential distillate recovery for a given starting PW quality.

How to Make Better Investment Decisions in Unconventional Projects

2020 ◽  
Vol 72 (12) ◽  
pp. 41-42
Author(s):  
Judy Feder
Keyword(s):  
Net Present Value ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Asia Pacific ◽  
Well Performance ◽  
Present Value ◽  
The Past ◽  
Unconventional Oil And Gas ◽  
Assurance Process ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Cost

This article, written by JPT Technology Editor Judy Feder, contains highlights of paper URTEC 198318, “How Not to Squander Billions on Your Next Unconventional Venture,” by Creties Jenkins, SPE, and Mark McLane, SPE, Rose and Associates, prepared for the 2019 SPE/AAPG/SEG Asia Pacific Unconventional Resources Technology Conference, Brisbane, Australia, 18-19 November. The paper has not been peer reviewed. During the past decade, hundreds of unconventional oil and gas projects have failed to deliver the value sought by shareholders. Two common mistakes have been focusing on production attainment instead of value creation, and incorrectly thinking that enough was understood about a given reservoir to proceed with development. Companies must implement a staged approach that exposes capital incrementally in a responsible fashion and an assurance process that provides a framework for conducting and reviewing work so that mistakes may be analyzed to influence future decisions. The complete paper provides a work flow for making better decisions about investing in unconventional projects. Introduction In 2019, an analysis of 16,000 unconventional wells operated by 29 of the largest producers in Texas and North Dakota revealed that these companies spent $112 billion more in cash over the past 10 years than they generated from operations. A primary contributor to this shortfall was optimistic production forecasts based on a small number of early wells. These types of projections lead companies to commit to development projects before they understand the true variability in well performance and, most importantly, whether the average well will be commercial (i.e., able to pay for the cost to drill, complete, and tie in). Commercial is defined here as attaining a present value greater than zero at the corporate discount rate. If this is 10%, a net present value (NPV) of zero equates to a 10% rate of return. The Challenge More than 50 shale plays across North America have been tested for their production potential. Of these, only a dozen or so (approximately 25%) have been commercially developed. Thus, the first order of business is to focus on the right play in the right basin. But even within a productive basin, operators need to be in the commercial fairway, which is commonly a fraction of the total basin area regardless of play type. The probability of commercializing a new unconventional play in a frontier basin is low. Although a well can be drilled practically anywhere in the basin and encounter mobile hydrocarbons, this does not reduce the commercial risk relative to conventional plays. Instead, it transfers the risk (threat of fiscal loss) to later stages, in which it must be shown that unconventional wells can produce at sufficient rates, costs can be reduced to make these wells commercially viable, and results are repeatable.

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.

scholarly journals Optimisation of Radium Removal from Saline Produced Waters during Oil and Gas Extraction

Minerals ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 278
Author(s):  
Joel Garner ◽  
David Read
Keyword(s):  
Solid Waste ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Produced Water ◽  
Solid Phase ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Barium Sulphate ◽  
Radioactive Waste Disposal ◽  
Radium Isotopes ◽  
Produced Waters ◽  
Co Precipitation

Unconventional shale gas exploitation presents complex problems in terms of radioactive waste disposal. Large volumes of saline produced water resulting from hydraulic fracturing are typically enriched in radium isotopes, up to several hundred Bq/dm3, orders of magnitude above national discharge limits. There is a need, therefore, to decontaminate the fluid prior to discharge, preferably by creating a less problematic radium-containing, solid waste form. Barite (barium sulphate) co-precipitation is a cost-effective method for achieving these objectives, provided the process can be controlled. In this work, radium recovery of ~90% has been achieved for simulant produced waters containing 100 Bq/dm3, using a single, optimised co-precipitation step. However, salinity has a significant effect on the efficiency of the process; higher salinity solutions requiring substantially more reagent to achieve the same recovery. If >90% radium removal is sought, multiple co-precipitation steps provide a much faster alternative than post-precipitation recrystallization of the barite solid phase, albeit at higher cost. The resulting solid waste has a relatively high specific radium activity but a much smaller volume, which presents a less intractable disposal problem for site operators than large volumes of radium-contaminated fluid.

Main approaches to estimating the cost of shareholder equity of oil and gas producers

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 685-697
Author(s):  
O.V. Shimko
Keyword(s):  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Oil Prices ◽  
Minimum Cost ◽  
Free Cash Flow ◽  
Annual Reports ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Oil And Gas Producers ◽  
The Cost

Subject. The study analyzes generally accepted approaches to assessing the value of companies on the basis of financial statement data of ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Occidental Petroleum, Devon Energy, Anadarko Petroleum, EOG Resources, Apache, Marathon Oil, Imperial Oil, Suncor Energy, Husky Energy, Canadian Natural Resources, Royal Dutch Shell, Gazprom, Rosneft, LUKOIL, and others, for 1999—2018. Objectives. The aim is to determine the specifics of using the methods of cost, DFC, and comparative approaches to assessing the value of share capital of oil and gas companies. Methods. The study employs methods of statistical analysis and generalization of materials of scientific articles and official annual reports on the results of financial and economic activities of the largest public oil and gas corporations. Results. Based on the results of a comprehensive analysis, I identified advantages and disadvantages of standard approaches to assessing the value of oil and gas producers. Conclusions. The paper describes pros and cons of the said approaches. For instance, the cost approach is acceptable for assessing the minimum cost of small companies in the industry. The DFC-based approach complicates the reliability of medium-term forecasts for oil prices due to fluctuations in oil prices inherent in the industry, on which the net profit and free cash flow of companies depend to a large extent. The comparative approach enables to quickly determine the range of possible value of the corporation based on transactions data and current market situation.

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