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One of the challenging aspects of shale oil and gas development in the U.S. comes from the fact that some of the large shale reservoirs are located in areas that are arid or semi-arid. Some, like the Eagle Ford and Cline shales in Texas, and the Niobrara in Colorado, are affected by ongoing drought conditions. This reality can make the sourcing of water for hydraulic fracturing operations a difficult undertaking.
The good news is that the industry is becoming increasingly creative in recycling, conservation and water sourcing efforts as time goes on, allowing the development of America’s incredible wealth of oil and natural gas shale resources to continue. The pre-existing water situation is unique to each part of the country, so solutions to water-sourcing challenges vary by region.
Regional solutions. The northeast Louisiana area, home to the Haynesville shale, has provided a good example in recent years. The underground water aquifers in that area were not capable of providing the water necessary to sustain rapid, initial drill-out of that play, so companies were forced to look for other options. Many companies with leaseholds near the Red and Sabine Rivers, which flow along the eastern and western perimeters of the Haynesville play area, were able to obtain adequate water from those large streams. Other companies in the play were able to purchase treated effluent water from the City of Shreveport, and treated wastewater from a large, nearby plant operated by International Paper Company.
In the Eagle Ford region, we see a much different situation. Most companies in the western two-thirds of that region are able to source water from the deep, prolific Carrizo/Wilcox underground aquifer, which is a blessing, since the only rivers in that region often run at little more than a trickle, especially during droughts. Some of the small communities in the area have begun to follow Shreveport’s example, creating a new profit center by selling treated effluent water for oilfield use.
As is always the case in the oil and gas industry, advancing technology is also playing a key role in addressing water issues. Recycling and conservation have become key elements of the water equation in the oil patch. Smaller companies that own proprietary recycling systems have proliferated across the country, providing solutions in isolated areas.
Service company innovation. But larger oilfield service providers with multi-million-dollar, annual R&D budgets are also playing a major role. For example, in March, Halliburton announced the commercialization of a new integrated suite of water services called H2OForward. This water system formulates stable fracturing fluids that are able to work with water containing total dissolved solids (TDS) of up to 285,000 ppm, an advance that Walter Dale, Halliburton’s Global Strategic Business manager of Water Management Solutions, refers to as “…a paradigm shift that negates the use of fresh water and meets the supply chain needs of the customer.”
XTO Energy partnered with Halliburton in the use of the H2OForward system on a group of wells in Eddy County, N.M., and earlier this year issued a report that documents savings of between $70,000 and $100,000 per well, with no discernible loss of production.
FTS International, formerly Frac Tech, has a treatment and recycling technology that it calls Aquacor. One of the company’s Aquacor units can clean up to 15,000 bbl (630,000 gal) of returned fracturing fluid each day. The company expects to have three of its systems in operation by year’s end.
Baker Hughes offers a water management technology that it calls H2PrO. Tom Whalen, the company’s V.P. of Water Management, recently told Reuters that, when the company introduced its product about 18 months ago, its customers initially expressed interest, but were slow to commit to using it daily. But, he said, “In the last 12 months, that’s totally changed,” and there are now more than 300 employees engaged in water management in North American shale plays.
Of course, one of the industry’s ongoing challenges is to help the public and policymakers look at its overall water use in the context of, and compared to, society’s other uses of water. In recent years, we’ve all seen factoids and slides comparing water used in the average hydraulic fracturing job to other uses, like crop irrigation, power generation, city drinking water and other societal uses that consume far more water. I’ve used many of those factoids, myself, in presentations and speeches.
One of the more compelling recent comparisons comes from the June 28 edition of The Wall Street Journal. The Journal cites a study compiled by a University of Texas instructor named Rusty Todd, who compared water used in Texas for hydraulic fracturing operations to the volume of water used by Texans for watering their lawns.
Todd’s somewhat astonishing finding was that the amount used for lawn watering was 18 times the amount of water used in fracturing operations in Texas in 2011. Given the disproportionate attention paid by the news media to water used by the industry, that ratio is pretty amazing.
Yet, the reality for this industry is that public perception, largely impacted by media coverage, matters. And it matters even more when the subject is water, one of our most critical life-sustaining substances. So, in order to maintain the public’s confidence and, ultimately, its license to operate, the industry is obligated to continue to find ways to conserve, recycle and source water.
Fortunately, a lot of very smart people at many of the industry’s most innovative companies are involved in doing exactly that. 
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