An experimental study to measure the required fresh water and treated water for drilling an unconventional shale reservoir

Abstract

The primary challenges of petroleum industries are to provide a secure quantity and quality of water resources and how to manage the generated wastewater adequately. Appropriate application of water treatment systems would play a substantial role in drilling operations. Therefore, wastewater management and controlling the amount of produced hazardous materials should be significantly taken into consideration. The objective of this extensive study is to calculate the required water for the waterflooding, polymer flooding, and hydraulic fracturing performances, and subsequently, the percentage of fresh water saving in a shale oil reservoir was calculated accordingly. First of all, the required water and treated water for each well were calculated, and then, the percentage of saving water was averagely calculated. As a result, the percentage of fresh water saving for waterflooding, polymer flooding, and hydraulic fracturing were 71.5%, 70%, and 83.7%, respectively. It was indicated that most of the injected water was treated again and reinjected in the fracturing operations. Furthermore, the total volume of required water for the drilling of Pazanan oilfield’s wells was approximately 125 million gallons that indicated the treatment processes provided about 95 million gallons of this volume. Consequently, the average volume of fresh water saving was relatively 70% which was clarified the accuracy of wastewater separation and purification in the treatment system.