The added costs of permitting and legal liability boost the total industry burden to the tens of billions. Approaches to this problem vary. GTI interviewed 35 operators in Texas, Louisiana and Colorado to learn how they managed produced water and came up with some interesting insights. Companies are organized functionally in ways that tend to compartmentalize the water hauling costs from, say, the chemical costs or the permitting costs. If you look at water management in a holistic way and recognize it's importance from the initial estimate of a prospect's recoverable reserves right through to the valuation of an asset for divestiture, you can make decisions that will improve your overall economics.
Most operators rely on a combination of technologies from categories one and two.
For the most part, operators continue to rely on conventional disposal solutions and focus on finding ways to reduce the cost of those operations as much as possible. However, over the past several years the third category, downhole separation and disposal, has seen an increased number of installations and attention. A significant portion of the separated water is reinjected into a non-productive interval, while the oil, gas and remaining water are produced to the surface. If water volumes do not increase over the life of the field, facility and piping expansions to avoid constraining oil production will not be necessary. Expensive disposal systems will not be needed.