The average well requires between 500,000 and 700,000 barrels of water — that’s more than 21 million gallons — to be hydraulically fractured, a figure that is expected to only continue climbing as operators drill longer laterals and complete their wells with bigger fracturing jobs, requiring even more water.
Where will that water come from? Operators are increasingly focused on reducing or eliminating their demand for fresh water by recycling and reusing produced or flowback water.
