KATIE DAHLBERG: And let me share my screen.
OK.
So, good afternoon, everyone.
I'm Katie Dahlberg, I'm the manager of the projections
and socio-economic analysis department
and the water (UNKNOWN) planning division
at the Texas Water Development Board.
I am also the contract manager for this Mining Water Use Study,
which is conducted by the TWDB and the University
of Texas Bureau of Economic Geology.
So, very quickly, I just want to touch on some housekeeping items.
So, if you could please mute yourselves so that we can
hear everyone speaking and we can hear them clearly,
and then you can use the chat feature or
the raise hand feature if you have questions.
We have dedicated time at the end of today's
presentation for question and answers.
So, if you want to write your questions
into the chat during the meeting,
we will definitely get to them at the end of today's meeting.
Also, I am recording the meeting, just everyone knows.
So, I really want to appreciate everyone
for taking the time to join us today.
We're very excited to share our progress on this study.
So, today's agenda, first, we have a special guest speaker.
We'll hear from director Kathleen Jackson,
one of the board members at the TWDB.
Then I will provide some background on the purpose of the study.
Then I'll hand it over to Bridget Scanlon with BEG
to discuss the progress and upcoming tasks.
And then lastly, we will have time for questions and answers.
So, let me introduce director Jackson and let her take it away.
KATHLEEN JACKSON: Well, thanks so much, Katie.
It's exciting to be here and to see so many folks
virtually who've been engaged over the years
in water supply and knowing and understanding how
important that is moving forward for Texas.
And appreciative, of course, of the USGS for
the funding opportunity to be able to
go in and actually do this study and how
important it is to be able to come back.
I know we did a study previously in the 2011 2012 timeframe,
but things have changed and so important that we go in and revisit
and take another look at it and not only look at what our past usage is.
But of course, to me, what's so exciting is that we're actually
going to be looking at projections of future water
demand for the 2030 2080 timeframe and then looking at water patterns,
as well as technological changes.
So, fortunate to have the BEG leading this effort.
They've been and continue to be great partners with the board and wanted
to give a shout out to the Texas Oil and Gas Association, TXOGA.
Todd Staples has been extremely supportive
in terms of working with the board,
drawing on the resources of industry.
Wonderful to have (UNKNOWN) continue in that role as
the chair of their water committee and of course,
(UNKNOWN) helping and moving forward as we get
stakeholder input throughout the process.
So, I'm excited to hear the update, learn about the progress and about
what we're doing moving forward in this very, very important area.
And of course, we all know that the better the data,
the better the science,
the better the policy.
So, just appreciate everyone's hard work on this and I'll say thank
you ahead of time for questions and stakeholder input as we
move forward and get a good understanding of what we're using
in terms of mining activities for future water use in Texas.
So, thanks, Katie.
Thanks for the hard work Katie for your department
and all the work that the staff has done on this.
KATIE DAHLBERG: Thank you so much for joining us today.
We really appreciate your insight, Dr Jackson,
so thank you for being here.
So, just a gentle reminder about this study.
This is an update to the previous mining water
use study that was conducted in 2011 by BEG.
We recently received a grant from the US Geological Survey,
and we contracted BEG to complete the work since this is an update
to the previous study and TWDB is providing data support for BEG.
The purpose of this study is to provide a comprehensive
and quantitative assessment of mining
water use in Texas by developing historical
water use estimates and demand projections,
which will be used in the 2026 Regional Water Plans.
So, the study tasks.
In this study, we will accomplish the following.
We'll develop historical water use estimates for hydraulic fracturing,
including water sources and water demand projections.
We'll also develop historical water use estimates and projections
for coal and lignite mining, as well as for aggregates.
These results will be compared to the mining water use
estimates in Texas that the USGS has developed.
And near the end of the project, I will develop an interactive
dashboard to share on the TWCB website,
which will include water use estimates
and projections by county and mining type.
So, now I will hand it over to Bridget with UT Bureau of
Economic Geology to provide more detail on these tasks.
Let me stop sharing my screen.
BRIDGET SCANLON: Thanks, Katie.
I've just tried to share mine, and thanks to Kathleen for
the introduction and for being here, I really appreciate it.
Katie, can you see my slides now?
KATIE DAHLBERG: Yes.
BRIDGET SCANLON: OK.
Yes.
So, as Katie mentioned, (UNKNOWN) and I have been working
closely on this study and also with input from JP Nicot,
who conducted the 2011 study, and Qian Yang,
who is focusing on the projections of water use.
We are very grateful to (UNKNOWN) and Katie Dahlberg for helping us put
the proposal together and for working closely with us on this project.
We also thank the USGS for the funding
for this study and for all the other
people in the industry and in other agencies
who provide input to the data.
So, Katie showed you the task that we are required to do for this study,
and this presentation will focus on
the first three tasks which is current
and historical water use for hydraulic
fracturing and produced water volumes.
Task two is the sources of water for hydraulic
fracturing and task three is the projections
of future water demand for hydraulic fracturing
for oil and gas for the next 50 years.
The next phases of the study will focus on coal, lignite and aggregates.
And we are interacting a lot with coal companies
these days because we have another DOE study
looking at critical minerals and rare earth
elements in coal mines and in power plants.
So, I think there will be a nice overlap there.
And then the last task is coordinating with the USGS
on reporting water use for the mining category.
So, focusing on task one then,
these are sources for hydraulic fracturing,
water use, FracFocus, and IHS database.
We have historically used the IHS database because
they have data on, well completions,
and a lot of additional data beyond what FracFocus includes.
But now we recognize that IHS obtains most of its data
on hydraulic fracturing water use from FracFocus.
So, the two are very close.
The numbers from the two databases are very
close as I will show in a little while.
We are considering the time period 2009 to 2020,
so not including 2020, but up to 2020.
So, 2019 is the latest year that we provide data for and we
are considering all of the major players, the Permian,
the Eagle Ford, Barnett, Haynesville, (UNKNOWN),
and others that the water development
had included based on the counties.
And one of the things that we don't have
data for is that the extent to which
produced water from oil and gas is reused
to support hydraulic fracturing,
and we are trying to obtain that data from different groups,
midstream companies, and oil and gas companies.
And (UNKNOWN) Treadway is helping us with that.
And the second part then is the produced
water volumes based on IHS data,
and all of the data originates from the Railroad Commission.
And then these various companies then call
it the data from the Railroad Commission.
The time period is 2009 through 2019.
It does include 2019, and that's the latest year because there's
generally a lag of one year in produce water reporting.
So, we felt like the most reliable data would be available for 2019,
and we're focusing primarily on unconventional reservoirs.
So, here you can see hydraulic fracturing water use,
the point data from 2010 through 2019, the last decade.
And the points represented the wells that
are drilled for hydraulic fracturing.
And you can see that most of the wells are the south of Andrews,
Martin, and Howard County.
Above that, there are some wells that are hydraulically fractured,
but the density is much lower than south of that region,
so that represents a gap.
And then it extends into the Delaware Basin, Reeves, Loving, Winkler,
and Ward counties and then into New Mexico,
primarily Eddie and Lee County.
So, the gray line here is the boundary of the different place.
So, this line is the Midland Basin, this is the Central Basin platform,
which is primarily conventional drilling,
and then this is the Delaware Basin on the West.
So, the two main unconventional plays are
the Midland Basin and the Delaware Basin.
So, here we show horizontal well depths for the unconventional wells,
and you can see that in the Midland Basin,
the dominant depth is about 2,000 to 3,000 feet.
So, it's about a half a mile deep.
Whereas in the Delaware basins,
they're generally deeper and most are 4,000
to 4,500 feet with shallow wells as you move out towards the margin.
And then the time series for hydraulic fracturing water use.
So, on the right, I'm showing the Midland Basin
which is on the eastern, and the left,
I'm showing the Delaware Basin witch on the West from 2010 through 2019.
And the black line is the mean water use
for hydraulic fracturing, median.
And the upper and lower, that's the 95th percentile
and the lower is the 5th percentile.
So, you can see in the Midland Basin,
hydraulic fracturing water use per well increased
from 2010 and still slightly increasing.
And it's about 20 million gallons per well in 2019.
But you can see a large range around
that value representing this spatial
variability ranging from 10 to about 27 million gallons per well.
And the Delaware Basin, the median values that are
lower than those in the Midland Basin and in 2019,
was about 15 million gallons per well.
But a larger range going from about five to 27 million gallons.
So, this is the water intensity per foot of lateral,
because a lot of people say, well,
you're using more water for hydraulic fracturing,
but oftentimes they don't consider whether the wells are getting longer.
And so one way to normalize the data then would
be to divide by the length of the laterals.
And so you can see that the water intensity per foot
of well lateral has been increasing through 2017,
but then has stabilized at about 2,000
gallons per foot in the Midland Basin and
a similar intensity in the Delaware Basin.
But again, a large range spatially within those sub-basins.
And then another way that we can check that the water use is
to look at how much proppant they're adding with the water.
And normally they add about a pound of proppant per gallon.
And here we show 2,000...
I think.
I think this is the hydraulic fracturing water used for the Permian,
and this is the proppant loading.
So, it's a little over a thousand pounds per foot of laterals,
so they do about a pound of proppant per gallon
and that is being fairly stable throughout.
And then considering that with the increasing intensity,
you get about 2,000,
almost 2,000 pounds per foot of well lateral.
So, we compared the results from the Water Development Board,
which are based on FracFocus for the different
basins and are reported in million
gallons for 2019 with the data that we already
developed using the IHS database.
And you can see that there's generally good correspondence
between the two data sources.
So, the totals are almost exactly the same.
And then slight differences in some of the players.
For example, the Eagle Ford or whatever.
But this makes sense because I think IHS is obtaining most of
its data on hydraulic fracturing water demand from FracFocus.
So, the next thing I want to talk about is
the produced water volumes in the Permian Basin.
And the black line here, this is for the entire Permian Basin,
and the black line shows the total produced
water volume over time and the gray line
shows the produced water from conventional
reservoirs in the Permian Basin.
I'm only showing examples from the Permian Basin,
but we have similar data for all of the other players.
But I don't want to provide the results
for each of the players separately
just to give you an idea of the types of data that we have.
And since the Permian is the largest user and producer of water,
I thought it'd be best to focus on that.
So, the gray line is the produced water from conventional reservoirs.
And the dash degree is from unconventional reservoirs.
So, you can see in about 2018 2019 in the Permian Basin,
they produce water from conventional and unconventional
reservoirs basically matched to each other,
and the produced water volumes exceeds the blue line which is
the volume used for hydraulic fracturing in the Permian.
So, the next slide then, the top one shows the Midland Basin,
and the bottom one shows the Delaware Basin.
So, you can see in the Midland Basin,
the hydraulic fracturing water used exceeds
the produced water volume in the Midland Basin.
So, if we reused produced water for hydraulic
fracturing in the Midland Basin,
we could use most of that produced water.
But in the Delaware Basin,
you can see that the produce to water volumes,
about 70 billion gallons,
is much higher than it is about two times the volume
of water that's used for hydraulic fracturing.
So, there is a big excess of produced water in the Delaware Basin.
So, even if we maximize to reuse of produced
water for hydraulic fracturing,
we would still have an excess of produced water.
So, we also looked at the produced water to oil ratio and the water cut.
So, at the top, you can see the produced water to oil ratio.
And on the left-hand side is the conventional
reservoirs in the Permian Basin,
and the solid gray line is the Delaware Basin,
and the dashed line is the Midland Basin.
So, the produced water to oil ratio is slightly higher
in the Midland Basin than in the Delaware Basin.
And in the unconventional reservoirs then.
So, I mean, in conventional reservoirs in the Permian Basin,
typically produced about 14 or 15 barrels of water per barrel of oil.
And in the unconventional reservoir,
it's about two to three barrels of water per barrel of oil.
And so here you can see the Permian Basin,
more water produced in the Delaware Basin,
over three barrels of water per barrel of oil,
and slightly less than two barrels of water
per barrel of oil in the Midland Basin.
And some people prefer to talk about water cut,
so it's produced water over produced water plus oil.
And you can see that the water cut in
the Midland Basin in the conventional
reservoirs is higher than that in the Delaware Basin.
But the unconventional reservoirs the water
cut for the Delaware Basin is higher,
almost 77% versus about 60, 64 percent in the Midland Basin.
So, Bob Review also looks at the saltwater
disposal volumes which are reported
in IHS provides another check on
the produced water volumes in the basin,
and looks at where which units that water is being disposed of.
We have seen increased seismicity in the Permian Basin in recent months,
with the four or five earthquakes greater than
magnitude four in the Delaware Basin.
So, they're trying to figure out what might be causing that,
and this is one of the components of those analyses.
So, you can see this is the solid red line is the cumulative
saltwater disposal above the unconventional reservoirs
in shallow units above the unconventional reservoirs,
and the dashed line is below the reservoirs.
We know that in Oklahoma, they had a lot of seismicities and they
disposed off most of the water in the units near the basement.
And so New Mexico precludes does not allow
water disposal near the basement,
in the Ellenberger unit,
or in shallow units because of the potential of possibly
impacting shallow aquifers if they get over pressured.
So, the Delaware Mountain Group in the Delaware Basin.
So, we see that most of the saltwater disposal in Texas in
the Permian is into shallow units above the reservoir,
and it's less expensive to dispose of it in shallow units.
But on the other hand, you have to drill through those shallow
units to get to the reservoir and to produce the oil and gas.
And that can be a problematic in areas where there's over-pressuring
of some of the units like we see in parts of the Midland Basin.
There's over-pressuring and they're required to use more casing,
another layer of casing to get through to those units.
So, this is the Delaware Basin again dominated by
shallow units in the Guadalupian units disposal.
And this provides a good check on our produced water
volumes and not so much the disposal in deeper zones
because these deeper zones are extremely deep
and it's very expensive to drill these deep wells.
So, now moving to Task two, which is to assess the source
of water that's used for hydraulic fracturing,
again, I'm just going to focus on the Permian Basin as an example.
And we're very fortunate to have the Texas
Department of Licensing and Regulation,
which requires recording the depth of wells
and then using those well depths,
rig, frac, and industrial supply wells.
And using the GAM geology, Groundwater Availability
Modeling geology data (UNKNOWN)
then estimated to which wells are producing,
from which units based on well depth.
So, you can see here the number of water
supply wells for hydraulic fracturing.
So, the blue is the Ogallala.
And you can see in 2019, they drilled almost 1,200
wells in the Ogallala to supply water
for hydraulic fracturing and much lower
numbers of wells from the other units.
So, the green is the Edwards-Trinity,
and you can see the red is Dockum, et cetera.
So, I think one of the reasons they may have been drilling so many wells
in the Ogallala is because the Ogallala is very thin in that zone,
so they may need to drill a lot of wells
to provide the same amount of water.
And so here is a map showing the depth of these rig,
frac, and industrial wells over the time period.
And you can see it throughout much of
the Midland and the Delaware Basin,
we're looking at wells less than about 200 meters deep or 600 feet.
But in the northwestern part of the Midland Basin,
we have wells that are going down to maybe about a thousand
feet or 400 meters or greater in this region.
And about a thousand feet in this region,
most likely the Dockum units and generally
shallow wells in the Delaware Basin.
And you're showed the distribution of these
wells in the different aquifers,
and you can see in the Ogallala most of the hydraulic
fracturing is south of this line here.
And so also the wells are drilled to support hydraulic fracturing.
The Edwards-Trinity Plateau region and the Pecos Valley alluvial,
Pecos Valley aquifer.
And then the red areas are Dockum wells and the gray are deeper Permian
wells and then a few wells there in the Rustler and in other units.
And these are the colors representing the different aquifers.
So, we also compared the wells that are
drilled for hydraulic fracturing rig
and industrial supply wells with other
water wells drilled for other sectors.
And so here you can see for the Ogallala in recent
years since about 2016, the wells drilled for rig,
frac and industrial supply exceeded those that drilled for irrigation,
sorry, irrigation and domestic well use.
So, it dominates in terms of drilling.
And did the same for the Pecos Valley Aquifer.
The rig, frac, and industrial supply wells dominated the other sectors.
We looked at water quality to the general water quality or
these offers using the (UNKNOWN) developed more data.
And you can see here a map of distribution of water quality.
So, this is for the Ogallala.
And you can see freshwater near the outcrops
and getting a little bit more sailing, maybe 1,000
to 3,000 in this region and a similar
range for the Pecos Valley Aquifer.
So, very fresh.
Yeah, where we've got the sand dunes, etc,
and then more sailing in these runs near the Pecos River.
And this is the water quality for the Edwards-Trinity Plateau.
Generally, 1,000 to 3,000
in this zone and then fresh water in this area.
So, this gives us an idea of the water quality that's
been used to support hydraulic fracturing.
So, Task three is to develop projections of future water demand for
hydraulic fracturing for oil and gas over the next 50 years.
And we do this.
We work with our energy group here at the bureau and they develop
projected well inventory for unconventional reservoirs.
And for the Permian, for example,
they targeted the main producing units,
which is the Wolfcamp A and B (UNKNOWN) and then some shallower units.
They estimated the technically recoverable resources,
which assumes that all of the potential
wells would be drilled in those units
considering the recent well spacing.
And also that may result in overestimation
of water demand for hydraulic fracturing.
But we're only considering a few of the main units,
like three out of 10 potential producing units.
So, we feel like we are being conservative at the other end
by restricting our analysis to the main producing units.
So, we consider recent wells spacing and vertical
stacking of wells to develop the projections,
and we develop a blizzard map at the spatial
resolution of about a square mile.
So, in this analysis, then we would be expanding our previous
projections of water demand for the Permian,
Barnett Eagle Ford, and Haynesville units.
And we will get input from TXOGA from different
industry groups within TXOGA.
So, we published this work last year,
and you can see this map on the right.
The gray is the projected produce water volume for the Delaware Basin,
and the blue is the projected hydraulic fracturing water demand.
And so you can see we estimate at about three,
three and a half times more produced
water will be generated in the Delaware Basin
over the next approximately 50 years.
And then in the Midland Basin, the two volumes are similar.
So, if we reused produced water for hydraulic fracturing,
we could basically take care of most of
the produced water in the Midland Basin.
And there is a new consortium that was recently
developed at Texas Tech to look at
the produced water issues and to look at it
as a source of water for beneficial use.
We also published this study looking at the potential
to use produced water in the Permian,
and we emphasize that the lowest hanging fruit is to use
that produced water for hydraulic fracturing because
they can use a clean brine for hydraulic fracturing with
very little treatment and so the costs are low.
And in the Midland Basin showed that we could
manage that because the volumes are similar,
hydraulic fracturing produced water volume but in the Delaware Basin,
we have excess produced water.
So, the next thing that many people are looking
at are would be applying treated produced
water on rangeland or for irrigation or
discharging it to the Pecos River.
And TCEQ is responsible for permitting discharges
of treated produced water to the Pecos River.
In the Marcellus play in the northeast US,
they discharge a lot of treated produced water to their rivers.
But the dilution of those discharges is huge in that humid region.
But here the produced water volumes would overwhelm
the discharge of the Pecos River,
so there wouldn't be any dilution.
And then Senator Perry's report also emphasized
the potential for using treated
produced water for recharging aquifers using managed (UNKNOWN) recharge.
And we think that this might be a good idea,
but would require a pile of testing.
It might be best to use spreading basins on, for example,
the sands in the Pecos Valley Aquifer, (UNKNOWN),
and other regions like that,
so that the treated produced water could equilibrate with the sediments
before it reaches the aquifer and create any other problems.
So, that summarizes the first three tasks,
which are due at the end of November,
and then in the immediate future,
we will be looking at to the extent any impacts of rig
and frac supply wells on the aquifers by looking at stream
hydrographs or groundwater level hydrographs and we have
done some of that in the Permian Basin aquifers.
And today we haven't seen that much impact.
But the monitoring network was not designed to
assess the impacts of hydraulic fracturing,
so we may be missing areas of intense hydraulic fracturing.
We would like to try to get a handle on
how much produced water is reused,
recycled for hydraulic fracturing,
and we hope to get that from some of the industries in the midstream,
water midstream companies.
Looking at the relative costs of sourcing water and disposing
of water relative to the costs of treating water
to develop a clean brine and reusing and recycling it,
that might help us advance the reuse, recycling.
We would like to know if any operators
are experiencing any water scarcity
issues in different parts of the Permian Basin for hydraulic fracturing.
And we have general water quality data from
the TWDB database, which is fantastic,
but it might be nice to get some ideas from industry also on the total
dissolved solids of the water they're using and the chemistry.
We would also like to know if operators are seeing
any overpressure issues in different units.
We know we have heard reports in the past that
the Saint Andrews unit in the Midland Basin and parts
of the Midland Basin were over-pressuring
and operators had to put in extra casing strings.
And then we'd like to try to see maybe I know
some groups are mapping produce water ponds,
which may give us an idea of the extent of reuse and recycling also.
So, just to go back to our tasks then,
so I've talked today about Task one, two, and three.
And these are due at the end of November.
And next, we will be looking at coal, lignite, and aggregates.
And we've already started working on some of those.
And (UNKNOWN) has done a terrific job looking
at aggregates in the Permian Basin.
And we will be collaborating with USGS on their reporting
of water use in the mining category in the near future.
So, maybe I will stop sharing and would be glad to answer any questions.
KATIE DAHLBERG: Great.
Thank you, Bridget.
So, we've had a couple of comments in the chat, so we'll address those.
And then if anyone has any other questions,
please either put them in the chat or you can use
the raise hand feature and we can hear from you
if you'd like to address your question that way.
So, early on, (UNKNOWN) mentioned the comment is that data
is also in many company's sustainability reports.
I think this was in regards to hydraulic fracturing water use estimates,
correct me if I'm wrong, please.
KERRY: It's regarding the amount of water that's either fresh,
brackish, or recycled.
And so a lot of that is now reported fairly granular and with some
companies on a basin level in those sustainability reports.
BRIDGET SCANLON: Wonderful.
Thanks, Kerry.
That's great.
KERRY: And 2020's are available if you guys wanted
to look at that as a comparison
for how things have changed from 2018, 2019, and 2020.
Wonderful.
BRIDGET SCANLON: And we selected 2019 as sort of a representative year before the crash,
and so we thought that would reflect average conditions better
than taking the most recent year for hydraulic fracturing in 2020
and also because of the lag in reporting produced water.
So, we wanted to show hydraulic fracturing water use
and produced water volumes for the same year.
But we have been looking at the 2020 data also.
KERRY: Yeah, it's going to be interesting to see what 2021 looks like because
you just you're not seeing investment in great increases in rig count.
So, I think there's just a different investment
level push from companies that
may not necessarily promote a rebound like what we've seen in the past.
So, it'll be interesting to see.
BRIDGET SCANLON: Yeah, I agree, Kerry.
And we will be keeping an eye on that, and we should have
the hydraulic fracturing numbers early next year,
and would be interesting to compare with the recent years.
I may get back with you, Kerry, if I'm having problems
finding some of the sustainability reports.
So, I appreciate your bringing it up.
KERRY: Anytime, Bridget.
BRIDGET SCANLON: Thanks.
KATIE DAHLBERG: Jason Coleman asked for the data source for the water quality slides.
So, I think that was when you were talking
about water quality from the aquifers,
and I believe that's the groundwater availability models.
BRIDGET SCANLON: Well, the Water Development Board database on water quality,
so we were just plotting the point data from that database,
and we would be glad to send that to Jason if you're interested, Jason.
And that reminds me that we really need to connect with
the groundwater conservation districts to check
on our understanding of water sourcing and permitting
of wells for supporting hydraulic fracturing.
And if other wells are being used like irrigation wells or
to support hydraulic fracturing to get a reality check.
So, that's on our to-do list also.
And Katie, I presume you guys would be able to help us with that too.
KATIE DAHLBERG: Yes, I would be happy to help or if people want to contact
me if you know that you have that data available,
we have had some GCDs reach out regarding that data.
But yes, please, I have everyone's contact information.
But also, if you know that you have that data
and you want to include it in this study,
please feel free to reach out to me and we'll make that happen.
BRIDGET SCANLON: And if you want us to share specific data
for your GCD region or whatever,
we can share those data specifically with you,
and then we can do a better one on one
comparison and sort of reality check.
KATIE DAHLBERG: Another question from Rex Hunt, will you be considering treatment costs
and costs for disposal of the (UNKNOWN)s produced and treatment?
BRIDGET SCANLON: I think, Rex, that that will come under
the purview of the consortium at Texas Tech who
will be examining the potential for beneficial
use of produced water in other sectors.
And they're also collaborating with the New
Mexico produced Water Research Consortium,
who are working a lot with the treatment companies
and trying to come up with estimates of cost.
So, I think (UNKNOWN), do you have a contact with them?
I know (UNKNOWN) is involved, but I don't know
the person who's actually running that consortium.
I think (UNKNOWN) is a bit behind the scenes.
KATIE DAHLBERG: I think also I will add that just in the scope of our study,
this is more about water use estimates and projections and water
sources and cost for the companies was not necessarily something
that we were considering in the scope of this study.
But I think you're absolutely right, Bridget,
that that is something that I'm sure the produced water
consortium will be looking at when thinking about
beneficial reuse and technology and everything.
I'm sure that it definitely will be at the top of their list.
So, we had another question from Laurie (UNKNOWN),
what is the water quality of the receding aquifers for
potential water recharge using infiltration basins versus
the expected quality of treated produced water?
It seems like the produced water has orders of magnitude,
higher total dissolved solids versus the shallow aquifers.
BRIDGET SCANLON: That's an excellent question, Laurie.
And it's interesting.
I mean, I give presentations, most recently, I think, to Texas Desal.
So, there were some treatment companies giving
a presentation during that conference also.
And GP Nicole has done some excellent work on trying to characterize
the produced water quality in the basins
and finding in the Delaware Basin,
the central part of the Delaware Basin, the water is about 30 to 40,000
milligrams per liter TDS, similar to seawater.
And so we were thinking, well,
that's great because maybe you could use reverse osmosis rather than
a more expensive thermal desalination to treat that
water for use outside of oil and gas sector.
But actually, the treatment company said they preferred
the high TDS water because they want
to develop other byproducts from the treatment
that they could sell for other purposes.
So, it was a bit of a negative on their side.
I know (UNKNOWN) and other people have also characterized
the produced water in the Midland Basin in different units.
So, the treated produced water, if you're doing thermal desal,
should almost be like very high quality.
But the (UNKNOWN) is out and the Environmental
Defense Fund and others are looking at that.
Would any of the contaminants in produced water bypass
the treatment and how reliable would the treatment be?
And so there are a lot of questions at that end,
and Nicole Saunders and others discuss that quite
a lot and EDF is working on that topic.
The quality of water in the aquifers.
I think the most ideal situation would
possibly be the Pecos Valley Aquifer.
Maybe where you have high recharge through the sands
in monument draw trough or something like that.
And the quality of the water in the Pecos
Valley Aquifer is probably fairly good.
And so I think a lot of research would be needed before we get
to that point where we could recharge treated produced water.
But it brings up another option.
Maybe we should put that produced water in disposal units like
the Saint Andrews and then and take it out of those disposal
units to support hydraulic fracturing rather
than using groundwater fracture,
slightly brackish groundwater.
So, there are a lot of questions out there,
and I'm sure the consortium will be looking at
a lot of these different things in the future.
I hope I answered your question, Laurie.
LAURIE: Thank you.
KATIE DAHLBERG: OK.
So, we had a question from (UNKNOWN), is there any explanation for
the flattening of the trend in increasing water use from 2017 to 2019?
Would reporting of recycled produced water be of use
if the Railroad Commission could facilitate that?
BRIDGET SCANLON: Those are very good questions, (UNKNOWN).
I think the flattening of the trend in
the water use per length of lateral,
I think the increases in water use per length of lateral prior to 2017,
we have reflected a transition from using proppant from Wisconsin,
high-quality proppant from Wisconsin to local
proppant from local aggregate companies.
And so they were using more proppant.
And in order to get that proppant in, they had to use more water.
So, I think that may have expanded
the increase in water use prior to 2017.
And then I feel like maybe if they had an optimal cocktail then
of proppant in water and it just stabilized, then at that.
Yes, it would be beneficial to have reporting
of the reuse of produced water.
And I think FracFocus and the Groundwater
Protection Committee are trying
to advance that by simplifying their reporting in the FracFocus system.
And we'll have a separate category then for
reuse of produced water and also whether
the water is less than a thousand TDS or greater than a thousand TDS.
So, that will help, I think, in the future.
KATIE DAHLBERG: Yes, I think any kind of data would be super helpful in this study.
That's definitely what we're trying to
do is figure out how much water is
used in the mining industry and how much will be used in the future.
So, anything to kind of help us either
verify data like from FracFocus that
we have access to or alternative data sources would be super helpful.
Definitely water sources, those are some of the more difficult
data sets to understand and to come by in this industry.
So, we're looking at groundwater fresh and brackish
and surface water and then also reuse so
that could be recycled produced water or reuse
from other sources like municipal wastewater.
So, we're interested in all of this data set.
So, if anyone has any data they would like to share,
we would like to see it.
That would be great if we could work with
the Railroad Commission on that.
BRIDGET SCANLON: And also, Katie, I think, TCQ, I mean,
I think Pioneer has purchased wastewater from Midland and Odessa,
and I don't know if TCQ has any reporting of reuse of municipal
wastewater for hydraulic fracturing from Midland and Odessa,
that might be another source of data.
KATIE DAHLBERG: So, we did have a follow-up comment about
considering the treatment costs,
the cost of treatment and disposal (UNKNOWN) will make a significant
impact on the amount of demand for the produced water.
And I think that's absolutely correct.
I think what we're trying to understand is will
the re-use be used in the mining industry,
which as Bridget pointed out during the presentation,
that that seems like the lowest hanging fruit
possibly proven to tackle with that water.
So, that's a very good point.
Thank you, Rex.
Is there any more questions?
I don't see any others in the chat, but if anyone has any more
questions that they would like to share, please feel free.
Well, I really appreciate your time, Bridget.
Oh, can we get a copy of Bridget's slides?
Could I share (UNKNOWN)?
BRIDGET SCANLON: Of course, of course.
Yeah.
Yes.
I can send you those shortly, Katie.
You can make them available.
KATIE DAHLBERG: OK.
Wonderful.
Yes, I will do that.
That's a great idea and I'll definitely do that.
And I really appreciate your presentation,
Bridget and I appreciate Director Jackson being with us today.
And thank you everyone for taking the time to be with us.
So, with that, I think we can end the meeting a few minutes early.
And thank you so much, Bridget.
BRIDGET SCANLON: Thank you.
Bye-bye, Katie.
Bye-bye, Kathleen.
KATHLEEN JACKSON: OK, bye bye.
KATIE DAHLBERG: Thank you.