The Permian is a beehive of activity on the burgeoning water midstream front — the pipelines, saltwater disposal wells and other assets being built to facilitate the delivery of water to new wells for hydraulic fracturing and the transport of “produced water” from the lease to disposal or treatment sites. But the Bakken — arguably the birthplace of the water midstream sector nearly a decade ago — is no slouch, and a model of sorts for the infrastructure build-out now under way in the Permian. The volume of water needed for Bakken well completions is up sharply in recent years; more important still, the region is generating more than 1 MMb/d of produced water, and producers and water midstreamers alike are building new takeaway pipelines and drilling new SWDs to more efficiently deal with it. Today, we discuss water- and produced-water-related infrastructure in one of the U.S.’s largest production regions.
The trends toward longer horizontal wells and more intense well completions have resulted in the need for sharply higher volumes of fresh, treated or recycled water (and frac sand) in U.S. shale plays (see Faster Horses). Our understanding is that the completion of a typical horizontal well in the Bakken today requires 200 Mbbl or more of water — eight to 10 times as much as was needed to complete the much shorter laterals that were common in the early years of the Shale Era. All of that water needs to be delivered to the well site during the completion process — not an easy task in relatively dry western North Dakota.
Canadian crude output is rising, requiring new export routes. As traditional pathways face constraints, the U.S. Rockies—especially the Guernsey, WY hub—are emerging as key corridors for moving Canadian heavy crude to downstream markets, including the Gulf Coast.
Producers face another water-related challenge that’s much bigger and longer-term. As we said in Splish Splash, RBN’s Permian-focused Drill Down Report on water infrastructure, significant volumes of salty, minerals-rich produced water emerge from wells with crude and associated gas. But while most of the produced water from conventional wells can be injected into pressure-depleted oil reservoirs nearby for enhanced oil recovery (EOR), the produced water from the unconventional, horizontal wells driving new production in the Permian, the Bakken and other shale plays cannot be. Instead, the produced water from these leases needs to be transported — often long distances — to saltwater disposal wells (SWDs). SWDs are drilled specifically to receive large volumes of produced water and inject it into non-oil-producing geologic layers so that it does not foul the oil-producing layers or layers that produce potable water.
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About the song
"Let Me Move You" was written by Jimi Hendrix and appears as the fifth song on Hendrix's People, Hell and Angels album, released by the Hendrix estate in March 2013. It features Hendrix on guitar, with his long-time friend Lonnie Youngblood on vocals and sax. The song was recorded at the Record Plant in New York City in March 1969. People, Hell and Angels contains 12 previously unreleased recordings of tracks Hendrix was working on as a follow-up to his Electric Ladyland album. It reached #2 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart.
Jimi Hendrix was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. He released three studio albums and one live album before he passed away in September 1970 at the age of 27. He has seven Grammy Awards, received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1991, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992 and into the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2005, and was commemorated with a stamp from the U.S. Postal Service in 2014. Many have credited Jimi Hendrix with changing the way the electric guitar sounded in popular music and culture.
