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Produced Water Management
USTAR’s Eastern Utah Technology Outreach Team is working with universities, industry and entrepreneurs to develop and deploy technologies that will reduce the costs and environmental impact associated with produced water.
Oil and gas reservoirs naturally contain significant amounts of water. Additional water is often injected to achieve optimal recovery. Produced water refers to the natural and injected water that is produced along with oil and gas during extraction operations. Produced water management is one of the biggest challenges faced by oil and gas companies. By volume, it is the largest byproduct associated with oil and gas and coal bed methane production. Oil and gas production decisions are largely based on the economic feasibility of effectively disposing of produced water.
Technologies and techniques being developed here in Utah promise to reduce both the costs and environmental impact associated with produced water disposal. USTAR outreach is supporting a number of efforts to reuse produced water and find commercially viable uses for its byproducts. USTAR outreach is helping to connect industry with water recycling technology developed at Utah State to reduce the amount of produced water generated by regional oil and gas production. USTAR is also working with entrepreneurs to find economically feasible extraction methods and markets for valuable metals and compounds found in produced water.
In 2008, 103,002,302 barrels of water were produced in Utah. In Utah, the disposal cost of produced water ranges from $1-$1.20/bbl. Additional information on produced water and how it is regulated can be found at the DOE’s Produced Water Information System.
Produced water is reported in Barrels (42 U.S. gallons)