Study says water use in fracking up sharply
The volume of water used in hydraulic fracturing in the Permian Basin soared by nearly nine times between 2011 and 2016 as oil and gas companies worked to squeeze more oil and gas out of wells by employing more intense fracking techniques, according to a new study.
The study, by Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment and recently published in journal Science Advances, found that the amount of water used in Permian fracking operations, which pump a mixture of water, sand and chemicals at high pressure into wells, increased from 4,900 cubic meters per well in 2011 to 42,500 cubic meters per well in 2016 — an increase of almost 800 percent. An Olympicsized swimming pool has approximately 2,500 cubic meters of water in it.
The surge in water use shows how valuable a commodity water has become in semi-arid West Texas, where the Permian is located, and raised concerns about the stress oil and gas operations are putting on a scarce resource. Ruthie Redmond, the water re-
sources program manager for the Lone Star chapter of the Sierra Club, an environmental advocacy group, said pumping groundwater is part of surface owners’ rights but can affect adjacent landowners, drying out wells used for household or agricultural use and forcing those living in rural communities drill deeper and more expensive wells.
“The numbers are astounding,” Redmond said of the Duke report. “Once you start having commercializing groundwater resources, which is what we’re seeing with fracking, that’s when you get into these huge numbers that aren’t regulated as tightly as they need to be.”
Water is one of the main ingredients in fracking, which cracks shale rock to release oil and gas. The Duke study, which studies six shale plays, based its findings on data from the U.S. Department of Energy and other research papers on the oil and gas industry.
Fracking, also known as hydraulic fracturing, has become much more intense in the wake of the last oil bust as energy companies sought to make money at lower oil prices by increasing the productivity of wells. In addition to the surge in water consumption, fracking crews are using much more sand, which props open the cracks in the shale to allow oil and natural gas to escape. In one year alone, the average amount of sand pumped into a Permian well increased 50 percent, from 8.5 million pounds in 2016 to 12.8 million pounds in 2017, according to the research and consulting firm IHS Markit.
More water and more sand have resulted in more oil and gas. Oil production per rig in the Permian Basin increased nearly six times Jan. 2011 and Dec. 2016, while gas production increased nearly five times, according to the Department of Energy.
“You end up with higher productivity in the wells when you pump more sand and more water,” said Mukul Sharma, a professor in the petroleum, geosystem and chemical engineering departments at the University of Texas at Austin. “The productivity of the wells can be significantly improved and between 2011 and 2016 there has been a substantial increase in the productivity of the wells.”
José Ortega of Terra Oilfield Services is well versed in securing water for oil field companies. As vice president of water sourcing, Ortega works both with landowners and oil and gas companies to acquire groundwater and recycle water that’s already been used in oil field operations.
Terra Oilfield Services, headquartered in Spring, operates mainly around the Permian, where oil production increased from less than 1 million barrels a day in January 2011 to more than 3 million barrels a day — nearly one-third of U.S. production.
With increased production has come increased water use. But Ortega said that since 2013, more oil and gas companies are recycling water instead pumping it underground in disposal wells. Ortega says that sometimes it’s not unheard of for his company to recycle upwards of 60,000 barrels of water a day — water that can then be used again to frack.
“Over the last five years we’ve seen high applications of water recycling but also technologies that reduce the cost of doing so,” Ortega said. “With the oil and gas activity, produced water recycling and treatment is definitely an open market.”
Redmond, of the Sierra Club, said the pumping of groundwater remains a “legal gray area” because it is associated with private property rights. Even in regions with groundwater management districts, charged with protecting the resource for all, fights with landowners over pumping groundwater are not uncommon. One solution, she said, might be for the state to increase the powers groundwater districts have to regulate the withdrawal of groundwater. But that is unlikely to be easy in a state where property rights are fiercely protected.