Gurney, Daniel¹
(1) US Department of Energy, Tulsa, OK

ABSTRACT: Current and Future Directions of DOE Petroleum Environmental Program: Produced Water Issues

Water management is crucial to all petroleum production operations: The handling of huge volumes of saline water that are produced in the process of extracting oil and gas is a critical environmental problem. In oil production in the United States alone, up to ten billion dollars each year are expended to handle produced water. Additional effort and expense is involved with water in natural gas and coal bed methane production. Several work efforts relating to produced water are taking place within the Department of Energy’s Fossil Energy Oil and Gas Program. These range from actions to limit the quantity of produced water that is pumped to the surface, better handling of water that does make it to the surface, and the beneficial use of produced water so it can contribute to the effective use of water. This presentation will outline some of the actions taken by the National Energy Technology Laboratory and discuss the needs that still remain.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90026©2004 AAPG Annual Meeting, Dallas, Texas, April 18-21, 2004.