Petroleum Recovery Research Center, A Division of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology

Most oil & gas wells produce a significant amount of water for each barrel of oil – sometimes 6 or 7 barrels of water for 1 barrel of oil

It costs money to bring to surface, money to treat if reused, and money to dispose of again

Reinjection is beginning to be associated with increased seismic activity in some areas of the country

Instead of being a liability, it could be an asset Industrial Construction Agricultural

What is produced water and why the interest?

Petroleum Recovery Research Center, A Division of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology

Why characterize and map produced water?

Produced water is highly variable in both quality and quantity and it is important for any secondary user to be able to know the resource

It is useful to have hard data instead of vague assumptions about the volume, quality, and distribution of water – not all water is the same!

How much water are we talking about??

898,598,564 bbls, or~115,800 acre-ft in 2015,

statewide

How much water are we talking about??

1 acre foot ~ 7760 bbls

Where is it produced?

1 acre foot ~ 7760 bbls

Where is it produced?

Petroleum Recovery Research Center, A Division of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology

NM Water Quality Database

What is the quality like?

• Highly variable – samples in San Juan Basin range from 2000 to 35,000 ppm

• Permian Basin generally much more saline

• Pockets of less saline water in eastern Lea county along margins of central basin platform, esp. Hobbs Grayburg-San Andres units

• Lower (<25,000 mg/l) waters

Distribution by TDS

What is the quality like?Samples with TDS <25,000 mg/l in southeast NM

Count Play Name

376Upper San Andres and Grayburg Platform Mixed-Central Basin Platform Trend

207 Artesia Platform Sandstone

87 Northwest Shelf Upper Pennsylvanian Carbonate43 Leonard Restricted Platform Carbonate39 Abo Platform Carbonate

39Upper San Andres and Grayburg Platform Mixed-Artesia Vacuum Trend

38 Morrow

20 Delaware Mountain Group Basinal Sandstone

14 Wristen Buildups and Platform Carbonate

12 Bone Spring Basinal Sandstone and Carbonate

~5500 distinct wells• 7400 from older

database• Added ~2000 new

samples• New data gives nice

distribution where older data was limited

• Fills in gaps with newer active areas

NOT KNOWN 2456OLD

UNKNOWN 598<1960 5881960'S 6771970'S 9181980'S 8331990'S 10882000'S 8032010'S 1533

What vintage is the data?

Petroleum Recovery Research Center, A Division of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology

Distribution by play

Petroleum Recovery Research Center, A Division of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology

What improvements have we made?Lots of quality control and verification!

• Correct ID’s for many wells that had incorrect names, locations, APIs, in old database

• Cross-checked some data against original scanned image files and corrected errors in data and units

• Deleted previously unrecognized duplicate entries• Standardized information such as pool names, formations, etc• Joined to play and formation information from other sources to get

a better picture of data – what formations or plays are “best”• Determined that a significant number of wells in NW New Mexico

were actually not produced water but groundwater from CPS wells

• Incorporated production and injection volumes• Added almost 2000 new samples• Improved coverage in vintage and in distribution – now includes

more data from Bone Spring and Delaware plays

Petroleum Recovery Research Center, A Division of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology

Where can I find this data?

• GIS database will be available through WRRI website

• Data via text-based queries as well as whole database will be available from the Go-Tech website

• http://gotech.nmt.edu/gotech

• Contact info: martha@prrc.nmt.edu

Petroleum Recovery Research Center, A Division of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology

What can producers do to help?

• Share their water quality data with the general community –everybody benefits – we get calls every week from producers looking for WQ information

• If you are going to throw away paper forms or have old databases, make sure that we get those

• Develop some kind of standard for reporting quality if you are collecting new data

• Document the data – so much of the older information has incomplete or cryptic info. API number and location info is critical – names and operators change! Units, water depth or source formation, and water type are all useful information.

Petroleum Recovery Research Center, A Division of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology

Questions?

Petroleum Recovery Research Center, A Division of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology

Questions?