Search

The exponential increase in fossil energy production from Devonian-age shale in the Northeastern United States has highlighted the management challenges for produced waters from hydraulically fractured wells. Confounding these challenges is a scant availability of critical water quality parameters for this wastewater. Chemical analyses of 160 flowback and produced water samples collected from hydraulically fractured Marcellus Shale gas wells in Pennsylvania were correlated with spatial and temporal information to reveal underlying trends. Chloride was used as a reference for the comparison as its concentration varies with time of contact with the shale. Most major cations (i.e., Ca, Mg, Sr) were well-correlated with chloride concentration while barium exhibited strong influence of geographic location (i.e., higher levels in the northeast than in southwest). Comparisons against brines from adjacent formations provide insight into the origin of salinity in produced waters from Marcellus Shale. Major cations exhibited variations that cannot be explained by simple dilution of existing formation brine with the fracturing fluid, especially during the early flowback water production when the composition of the fracturing fluid and solid-liquid interactions influence the quality of the produced water. Water quality analysis in this study may help guide water management strategies for development of unconventional gas resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Produced water is the contaminated water that is brought to the surface in the process of recovering oil and gas. On the basis of discharge volume, this type of contaminated water is the largest contributor to the offshore waste stream. Modeling studies of large amounts of wastewater discharge into offshore areas have helped in the understanding of pollutant dispersion behaviors in marine environments and in further evaluating the potential environmental effects resulting from produced water discharges. This study presents an integrated three-dimensional (3D) approach for the simulation of produced water discharges in offshore areas. Specifically, an explicit second-order finite difference method was used to model the far-field pollutant dispersion behavior, and this method was coupled with the jet-plume model JETLAG with an extension of the 3D cross-flow conditions to simulate the near-field mixing processes. A dynamic coupling technique with full consideration of the interaction between the discharged fluids and receiving waters was employed in the model. A case study was conducted on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, Canada. The field validation of the modeling results was conducted for both the near-field and far-field dispersion processes, and the modeling results were in good agreement with the field observations. This study provides an integrated system tool for the simulation of complex transport processes in offshore areas, and the results from such modeling systems can be further used for the risk assessment analysis of the surface water environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]