New Logistics Solutions Reduce Financial, ESG Costs Of Produced Water Disposal

摘要

Producers in the Permian Basin shoulder the burden of safely moving produced saltwater from producing wells to injection wells. The burden increases each day, as water-to-oil ratios (WORs) grow with every new well pad and as legacy horizontal wells journey down the decline curve.While state regulatory reporting data for produced water is not exact, estimates suggest that the average WOR across the basin ranges between 1∶1 and 4∶1, with the highest ratios topping out at 10∶1 in parts of the Delaware Basin. The utility of produced water is constrained by the tight rock from which it is produced, limiting opportunities to repurpose it for enhanced oil recovery and waterflooding. As a result, the bulk of Permian produced water makes its way to injection wells at varying depths for disposal. Permian water disposal is a multibillion dollar industry, and it is only getting bigger.