When it comes to drilling in unconventional reservoirs, hydraulic fracturing (fracking) is the main technique used to open pores in shale formations to release oil and gas. Fracking requires a large quantity of water as well as many chemicals to formulate the fracking fluid. The disposal of frack fluid is a known environmental issue and has the potential to contaminate ground water impacting both human health and animal life. Similarly, early water production from shale gas reservoirs requires treatment and disposal.
Considering the water scarcity in remote areas (including international areas within the Middle East) and the volume of water required, flowback and produced waters can be treated and re-cycled to ensure zero water discharge to environment. What methods are available to recycle this water in oilfield activity?
A suitable on-site (mobile) or a common treatment facility in the area or injection to deep aquifer wells can be utilized by oil and gas companies. An optimal solution, used by PureLine clients for decades, is treating flowback and produced water with mobile chlorine dioxide generators.
How to Clean Fracking Water
A superior solution to clean fracking water (flowback or produced water) is to use chlorine dioxide. Chlorine dioxide is highly effective at oxidizing critical wastewater contaminates such as bacteria, iron, hydrogen sulfide, sulfides, and fracking polymers. After oxidation, these contaminates are inactivated and settle from the water thus making it safe and ready to reuse in hydraulic fracturing operations. This process is both safe and cost effective. Below is a short clip of the immediate reaction chlorine dioxide has with oilfield produced water.
PureLine’s Oil and Gas Water Treatment Solutions
PureLine mobile chlorine dioxide treatment trailers can be installed and up and running in just a few hours. As experienced by PureLine’s Middle East clients, water up to 500ppm hydrogen sulfide, as measured in air, was successfully treated and used for fracking without any negative impact to the frack fluid.
PureLine units are manned 24 hours per day with personnel ensuring all water is treated exactly to specification. They also have the capability of being remotely monitored with real-time feedback using sensors in the water stream guaranteeing 100% treatment. To ensure proper treatment, the concentration of chlorine dioxide is measured in the treated water and a residual level is maintained. As long as a residual of chlorine dioxide is maintained, it is ensured that the critical contaminates will be successfully inactivated through oxidation. This is a unique advantage of chlorine dioxide treatment versus other oxidizers in that its presence in water can be easily measured using a handheld meter. PureLine units can easily treat streams of water for hydraulic fracturing operations in excess of 120 bpm.
If you are looking for a superior solution to treat your flowback or produced water from fracking, contact PureLine below to learn how can be of help.