And many parts of the drilling, rigging, fracking and production process have a claim on a specific piece of that pie.
While it’s essential in mixing drilling muds, and an imperative in hydraulically fracturing a well, water is just as important to those who live and work on the rig for months on end.
Most are dependent on their freshwater needs for personal use from the trucks that ship that water in.
A new process on a couple of rigs in Weld County is taking the waste stream from that personal use, and giving it new life — making water good enough for re-use in downhole drilling, mixing cement and muds, fire retardant, boiler systems and dust control, to name a few.
On average, essential personnel on a rig send 2,000 gallons a day down the drain to be loaded into trucks that would normally be trucked out.
“It’s such an important resource here, it’s called beneficial reuse, and it’s looked at completely differently,” said Brian Edwards, director of business development for FilterBoxx Energy Services. The company has been recycling waste water from oil and gas camps and other industrial settings in Canada for 15 years, the largest of which is a 3,500-man camp in the Great White North.
The company spent the last six years doing the same in the Piceance Basin on the West Slope gas fields before companies refocused their efforts on Wattenberg oil.
Now, FilterBoxx is venturing into Weld County’s oil patch, for now conducting two pilot tests to convince operators their process is worthwhile.
FilterBoxx is just like adding a municipal wastewater treatment system to a remote site. But this one is on skids, is the size of a small construction trailer, and attaches at the end of a row of about eight temporary housing trailers on site, like the caboose of a train.
Wastewater streams in, gets cleaned up through a variety of nanoscopic membranes, aerators and filtration systems, and it comes out clear as day.
Once it’s clean, the water is put it in a day tank for re-use.
While they were in Garfield County, two FilterBoxx units were attached to drilling rigs. Morgan Hill, environmental health specialist for the county, said the units were the only ones in the county permitted, in which the recycled water could be re-used.
“Companies (here) primarily used it for downhole operations,” Hill said of the recycled product. “They are authorized to use it for surface uses, like dust mitigation, but mostly it was used for drilling and completion processes.”
The box runs off of rig power, it’s skid mounted, meaning it can just be hauled in, dropped off and plugged right in, said James Ullrich, who monitors the FilterBoxx installed on a well pad in Redtail. Monitoring the site 24/7, Ullrich can even tweak machinery remotely via his smart phone.
The system is so smart, he knows where every drop of water is going before the people on site do — even from his home town in Grand Junction.
“I can call the company man and tell them about their leaking toilet,” Ullrich said. “A leaky toilet can lose from 500 to 1,300 gallons a day.”
Ullrich stays on site to monitor the system to ensure there are no sewage blowouts and routine maintenance.
Typically, wastewater is shipped off site into other municipal wastewater treatment centers; much of the wastewater in Weld is being hauled away to Wyoming. That means trucks on the road hauling heavy loads. In North Dakota, for example, such waste is put in open pits, Edwards said.
“I eliminate all those trucks and in exchange for eliminating the trucking … and once it gets to site, it never leaves. They don’t have to truck (more) water in or out,” Edwards said.
Eliminating the continued need to replenish water sources, and reducing hauling costs for the waste can save oil and gas exploration companies from $40,000 to $50,000 a year, Edwards said.
In this environment, where companies are continually trying to shave drilling costs every little bit counts.
“Everyone likes to build a better mousetrap,” Edwards said. “That has nothing to do with soft costs of reducing construction costs, trucks running down the road. We take enormous amount of trucks off the road. It’s right and the prudent thing to do.”
The process also solves the problem of trucking in extra water for downhole purposes, Edwards said.
The process, a big hit in Canada and coming soon to Texas, has gained the stamp of approval from the Weld County Board of Health.
“We are the only wastewater treatment re-use company that has technology certificate by state to treat domestic sewage on well sites,” Edwards said.
Ullrich said oil well workers usually frown at the idea of reusing their own wastewater, but they quickly come around.
“It’s a great idea,” Ullrich said. “Companies are looking at how to save money. When you talk about re-using sewage water, they kind of get cold feet. But it sells itself.”
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