Water Consumption From Oil and Gas Exploration

IMPACTS: Getting Energy From Oil And Gas Doesn't Require Using Fresh Groundwater, Says Texas A&M Research

Oil and gas exploration operations can and must operate under environmentally sound practices and according to a research study at Texas A&M University, hydraulic fracturing in the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas can lessen its environmental impact by switching from fresh groundwater to abundant supplies of brackish groundwater.

Graduate students at the Bush School of Government and Public Service, under the leadership of James M. Griffin , professor and Bob Bullock Chair in Public Policy and Finance, studied water consumption from oil and gas exploration in the Eagle Ford Shale for Commissioner Christi Craddick of the Texas Railroad Commission (RRC) and published their findings in the report " Water Use In the Eagle Ford Shale: An Economic and Policy Analysis of Water Supply and Demand ."

The Eagle Ford Shale is a massive geologic formation spanning 30 Texas counties from Brazos County in the northeast to Webb County in the southwest. More than 200 operators are tapping into previously inaccessible oil and gas reserves in the Eagle Ford Shale with the use of hydraulic fracturing (HF) and horizontal drilling. "Even in its incipiency, the economic benefits to the region and the state are enormous," Griffin notes.

Professor James Griffin, an expert in micro-economics and energy policy, led the team of researchers.

As it stands, approximately 90 percent of the water used in HF in the area is from fresh groundwater aquifers. The crux of the researchers' recommendation is to incentivize the substitution of brackish groundwater for fresh groundwater at a low cost to the state and operators in the region. "Brackish groundwater, which has high salinity but is still useable for hydraulic fracturing, is an obvious help to conserving fresh groundwater," says Griffin. "But the problem of adequate future fresh groundwater supplies is much larger than its use by the industry. Future research is focused on other regulatory steps."

The researchers studied groundwater consumption within the Eagle Ford counties over a span of four years, looking not only at oil and gas exploration water consumption, but also at municipal consumption, irrigation and other categories. "This analysis showed that fresh groundwater is being consumed at about 2.5 times the groundwater recharge rates," according to the report. Irrigation is using more water than all the other categories combined, the researchers find, so the water problem reaches well beyond the use of fresh groundwater for oil and gas exploration.

But they found a difference can be made in conserving fresh groundwater in the shale, not through technology, but rather by designing better public policies that incentivize HF operators to substitute brackish groundwater for fresh groundwater.

"By using brackish water for HF, companies would no longer compete with farmers and municipalities for increasingly scarce fresh groundwater supplies," explains Griffin, an expert in micro-economics and energy policy.

"Operators would receive a ‘Green Star' recognition from the RRC and possibly the TCEQ (Texas Commission on Environmental Quality) if they take the pledge to avoid using fresh groundwater and agree to be compliant with all other environmental regulations," he says. "This program would consist of a bronze, silver and gold tier, depending on the amount of fresh groundwater used."

Source: Tamu Times

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• Energy
• Water Utility
• Groundwater Recharge