Oil and gas-produced water treatment system for agricultural use in the state of Kansas

Abstract

Produced water (PW) is a term used to characterize water that is deposited over the course of a million years in the oil and gas reservoir rock formation and then flows to the surface along with the production of oil and gas as a by-product. Owing to the use of steam injection, water flooding, and other processes for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) to improve output flow and operations, the amount of produced water increases significantly based on the reservoir’s age. At present, the water produced in the state of Kansas is disposed of in designated wells as defined by the state commission to reduce environmental issues and to discourage groundwater contamination. The research goal here is to pursue an innovative solution to existing practices by processing and reusing produced water for irrigation and generating new sources of revenue from 15.7 million acres of abandoned Kansas property owned by oil and gas corporations. The water treatment system developed in this research focuses on integrating a state-of-the-art model with proven technologies. The sedimentation-media, adsorption, ceramic (S-MAC) system is a combination of sedimentation plus dissolved air flotation (DAF), media, adsorption, and microporous ceramic filtration. Produced water samples from Lario Oil & Gas Company (Kansas Mid-Continent Region) were analyzed by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES) to identify the produced water elements. Results show up to 80% water recovery and 95–99% oil removal, and that the water standard parameters of pH, total dissolved solid TDS, conductivity, hardness, and dissolved oxygen are within the limits of palatable water requirements for Kansas.