|
Water management plays a major role in oil and gas operations. Water is injected into many oil fields to improve production, and often water from an oil- or gas-bearing formation flows to the surface during production. Ensuring that this water is properly treated and does not adversely affect the environment is a key concern for oil and gas producers. In the West, where much of the nation's oil and gas resource resides, the availability of water in arid lands is also a major issue.
The Risk Based Data Management System
For many years, the Energy Department's Office of Fossil Energy has worked closely with the Ground Water Protection Council, a national association of state ground water and underground injection control agencies, to develop better ways to protect and conserve ground water resources. One of the major products of this partnership has been the Risk Based Data Management System (RBDMS), a personal computer-based system now being used by 23 states including the OSAGE Nation to manage their oil and gas information and to make better regulatory and resource management decisions.
Developed originally as a way to manage the data needed to protect underground sources of drinking water, RBDMS has evolved to include all oil and gas production and permitting data, wellbore schematics, GIS capability, Internet access, and electronic permitting and reporting.
RBDMS enables increased environmental protection by allowing rapid access to data needed by regulatory agencies to assess environmental risk of oil and gas operations. It significantly reduces costs for industry regulatory compliance and increases governmental efficiency.
It eliminates duplicative permitting and reporting through data sharing with the Bureau of Land Management and the Minerals Management Service. Future priorities include continuing the development and implementation of national e-commerce solutions for oil and gas regulatory agencies and industry, and the development of a coalbed methane management tracking system.
Water Management Activities
The Energy Department's Fossil Energy program approaches water management from three perspectives:
- Environmental science and policy analysis. DOE's Office of Fossil Energy provides input to local, state and federal agencies to help determine the best way to handle regulatory issues, methods, and strategies. For example, when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the 1990s developed national effluent limitation guidelines (ELG) for offshore oil and gas discharges, coastal oil and gas activities, and discharges of synthetic drilling muds, DOE evaluated the proposed guidelines and recommended several cost-saving changes to the ELGs and the subsequent National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permitting process.
More recently, in 2004, the DOE's Office of Fossil Energy completed a study that estimated the economic impacts of proposed storm water discharge requirements on the oil and natural gas industry. Its purpose is to assist the EPA to make a more cost-effective regulatory decision. In 2005, DOE?s Argonne National Laboratory, in collaboration with the American Petroleum Institute and the Offshore Operators Committee, is implementing a project to sample and characterize produced water discharges from offshore oil and gas operations to better understand their potential contribution to hypoxic (reduced oxygen) areas in the Gulf of Mexico. Its purpose is to assist EPA and the Minerals Management Service in their efforts to study this environmental issue. Scientific evidence thus far suggests that sedimentation and urban runoff are the primary sources of concern.
In California, the DOE has helped develop a better scientific basis for developing Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) requirements for pollutants entering the Dominguez Channel watershed (that includes Los Angeles, Long Beach, and other coastal communities in southern California). Without data on the contribution of all sources of pollutants that enter a water body, the potential exists to set overly restrictive limitations on easily identified "point sources" such as refineries. By developing models of pollutant and contaminant sources and studying circulation models between land, air and water, the Department is developing scientifically sound information that will aid government decision-making on future watershed management.
-
Water Management Technologies. Partnerships between the Energy Department, national laboratories, universities, the Bureau of Land Management, and others are developing an impressive array of new technologies to remove contaminants in the fluids produced during oil and gas operations. For example, the Office of Fossil Energy announced several new projects in August 2004 that are investigating new reverse osmosis technologies, advanced cleaning agents, and other methods that can remove dissolved organics from produced water.
- Handling Produced Water from Coalbed Methane Operations. Coalbed methane has become a significant source of natural gas in the United States. During 2003, 1.6 trillion cubic feet of coalbed methane was produced in the United States, amounting to about 7.2 percent of total U.S. gas production. The Powder River Basin in Wyoming and Montana is the site of the fastest growing domestic natural gas play in the United States. A 2002 study sponsored by the Department estimated that technically recoverable coalbed natural gas resources in the Powder River Basin range from 25 to 39 trillion cubic feet. A separate analysis estimates that with the successful use of advanced, multi-seam completion technology recoverable resources would be 50 trillion cubic feet.
A key output of the 2002 study was that the cost to treat produced water from coalbed methane operations in the Powder River Basin could significantly impact the economics of recovering natural gas from this area. Potential treatment technologies applicable to the Powder River Basin and under consideration include: 1) untreated or passively treated water with surface discharge; 2) infiltration impoundment with enhanced evaporation and/or land application; 3) shallow re-injection of the produced water, and 4) actively treated water with infiltration, evaporation, land application and/or surface discharge, and disposition of the residual concentrate by trucking or deep injection.
New technologies and management practices can potentially reduce the cost of managing and treating produced water in the Powder River Basin and enable economic development of the large coalbed methane resource located there.
Water Management Technologies
Damage to soils is a potential concern in the Powder River Basin in Wyoming and Montana. The primary issue is whether water produced from coal seam natural gas operations over the 7 to 10 year life of an average well will cause salts in the soil to build up to levels that can harm native plants, or lead to higher concentrations of sodium in soils that can cause erosion or reduce the soil?s ability to support agriculture. Several Department of Energy projects are investigating various aspects of handling the produced waters from coalbeds in a way that protects the soil, water, and agriculture business of the Powder River Basin. For example, the DOE Program is investigating the impact of impoundments, or ponds, for managing of coalbed methane produced water through evaporation and ground infiltration. Of particular concern is how the water characteristics change as it percolates throught the soil and joins the ground water. This work is being conducted with joint funding from the State of Wyoming.
The Department has also helped develop a Handbook of Best Practices and Mitigation Strategies for Coalbed Methane in the Montana Portion of the Powder River Basin and associated website that allows producers to use mapping software to plan their projects in ways that minimize environmental impact and a Handbook on Coal Bed Methane Produced Water: Management and Beneficial Use Alternatives as resource guides for industry, regulators, land managers and concerned citizens.
|
 |
|
|
PROJECT INFO
 |
KEY PUBLICATIONS
|
|
|
QUICK FACTS/LINKS
|
|
PROGRAM CONTACTS
|
> |
Nancy Johnson
Office of Fossil Energy
(FE-35)
U.S. Department of Energy
Washington, DC 20585
202-586-6458 |
|
|
