Advanced Technologies For Produced Water Treatment And Reuse

Produced Water (PW) is the highest volume liquid waste stream generated by the petroleum industry. Historically, the treatment of PW has been limited to free oil and suspended solids removal, using physical separation technologies, and injection in disposal wells. However, because of new regulations combined with geological restrictions and local water scarcity, the drive to have a greater fraction of the PW more extensively treated and ultimately reused is increasing. Moreover, the growth in the application of water intensive processes to extract unconventional oil&gas resources, in particular in shale plays and oil sands, has increased the need for cost-effective treatment and reuse of PW to reduce fresh water uptakes. Therefore, the petroleum industry is investigating new PW treatment technologies given that the physical separation technologies traditionally used in the past are, in most cases, not capable of producing water of suitable quality to replace fresh water uptakes. This paper presents the results of a laboratory investigation carried out by the ConocoPhillips Global Water Sustainability Center (GWSC), where various treatment processes (membrane processes, membrane-bioreactors (MBRs), membrane distillation (MD) and ozonation) were evaluated as treatment methods for PW from different oil&gas fields. The key conclusions of this paper are: • Membrane Processes and Thermal Evaporators are currently operating within the petroleum industry in full scale PW treatment and reuse applications. • The preliminary results of investigations performed by GWSC confirmed the potential of Membrane Filtration, MBRs and Ozonation to treat PW and produce an effluent suitable for reuse. Membrane Distillation may have potential in the longer term. Further investigation is ongoing. • If successfully implemented, the above technologies will contribute to provide the petroleum industry with a broad range of technologies to cost-effectively treat and reuse PW.