Historical produced water chemistry data compiled for the San Ardo Oil Field and vicinity, Monterey County, central California

This digital dataset contains historical geochemical and other information for 271 samples of produced water from 143 sites in or near the San Ardo Oil Field in Monterey County, central California. Produced water is a term used in the oil industry to describe water that is produced from oil wells as a byproduct along with the oil and gas. The locations from which these historical samples have been collected include 101 wells; three wells (DataSet_ID 118 ,125, and 130) are located outside of the administrative boundary, but closer to San Ardo (within 3 miles) than any other oil field, and therefore they were included in this dataset. Well depth, perforation depths, and (or) depths referred to on geochemistry reports as interval of zone produced, are available for 97 of these wells. Additional sample sites include 11 storage tanks, and 31 unidentifiable sample sources. Designated well use and sample descriptions provide further insight about what the samples represent. The well use designation of most of the wells (79) is OG (oil/gas) and the samples (188) associated with these wells represent produced water. Samples from two wells (Dataset ID 28 and 130) are described as formation water. One well (Dataset ID 30) was drilled as a water-source well (WS) and used to supply groundwater in support of oil production at the time it was sampled, but later converted to an injection well. Another well (Dataset ID 103) was originally drilled as an oil well, but later abandoned and converted to an irrigation well prior to sampling. Eighteen wells have a site type designation of "injectate" based on the sample description combined with the designated well use at the time of sample collection (SF, steam flood; WD, water disposal; or WF, water flood). Most of the historical samples associated with injectate sites may represent water that originated from sources other than the wells at which they were collected. However, samples from two of these wells (Dataset ID 16 and 76) likely represent produced water as they were sampled prior to the wells being used for injection. Limited information is available about historical samples from storage tanks and unidentifiable sample sources, but these may represent pre- or post-treated composite samples of produced water from single or multiple wells. The numerical water chemistry data were compiled by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) from scanned laboratory analysis reports available from the California Geologic Energy Management Division (CalGEM). Sample site characteristics, such as well construction details, were attributed using a combination of information provided with the scanned laboratory analysis reports and well history files from CalGEM Well Finder. The compiled data are divided into two separate data files described as follows: 1) a summary data file identifying each site by name, the site location, basic construction information, and American petroleum Institute (API) number (for wells), the number of chemistry samples, period of record, sample description, and the geologic formation associated with the origin of the sampled water, or intended destination (formation into which water was to intended to be injected for samples labeled as injectate) of the sample; and 2) a data file of geochemistry analyses for selected water-quality indicators, major and minor ions, nutrients, and trace elements, parameter code and (or) method, reporting level, reporting level type, and supplemental notes. A data dictionary was created to describe the geochemistry data file and is provided with this data release.

Tags: environment, geochemistry, geoscientificinformation, inorganic-constituents, monterey-county, oil-field, oil-well, produced-water, southern-california, total-dissolved-solids, usgs-5f4c14b982ce4c3d12317eea, water-quality
Organization: Department of the Interior