Aided by good fortune and a great deal of perseverance, Devon is about to begin recycling water in its most active drilling area.
The idea dates back to 2008, shortly after the company drilled its first wells in the Anadarko Woodford formation, commonly known as the Cana shale play west of Oklahoma City.
At that time, state regulators had not seen or permitted such an operation. This one would lay the groundwork for future water recycling facilities, so the process took considerable time. Devon worked with the Oklahoma Corporation Commission to establish the rules and received the necessary permit in 2011.
A lined, 500,000-barrel pond is being built near Calumet. The previous limit allowed by regulators was 50,000 barrels.
A series of pipelines covering 36 square miles eventually will connect 36 well sites to the recycling facility. Recycling should begin in early 2012.
“This will dramatically reduce our need to pull water from farm ponds or the North Canadian River for future development,” said Jim Heinze, operations manager for the Anadarko Basin.
The project also will reduce Devon’s water disposal costs. Recycling the water costs far less than trucking it to a disposal well.
Water quality proves serendipitous
The project is possible largely because of the composition of the water in the Anadarko Woodford.
Water that flows back to the surface here after hydraulic fracturing contains, on average, about 20,000 parts per million of salts. This relatively low level allows the company to reuse the water once the solids are removed at the recycling facility. By comparison, seawater is nearly twice as salty: roughly 35,000 to 40,000 parts per million.
We aren’t always so fortunate. In the Barnett Shale, for example, flow-back water reaches 60,000 parts per million of salts. This high concentration requires us to remove the solids from that water, using a distillation process, before reusing it.
How it will work
At the Cana reuse facility, water will be moved into a concrete-lined settling basin. There, solids will settle to the bottom of the basin before the water is sent to a separator for removal of any remaining oil and natural gas liquids. Then the water will go into a 500,000-barrel pond for storage before being trucked back to a drilling site for use on another hydraulic fracturing job.
A disposal well is being drilled next to the recycling facility to handle excess water when, for instance, no pending natural gas well completion is scheduled.
Eventually, a pipeline will send the water from the drilling site to the recycling facility, and then back again for reuse. This will reduce truck traffic in both directions.
Our Cana recycling operation fits perfectly within Devon’s core value of being a good neighbor. Reducing truck traffic and freshwater use is just that: the neighborly thing to do.