In areas where freshwater costs and produced-water-disposal costs are problematic, operators and service companies have shown the desire to use produced and flowback water in field operations to enhance overall completions economics. This paper details the experience of using new stabilized crosslinked-fracturing-fluid systems in the Permian Basin using borated produced water. The new fracturing-fluid systems are designed to delay the crosslinking time when needed, using the boron already present in the water.
Introduction
In the US, nearly half of the wells hydraulically fractured since 2011 were in regions with high or extremely high water stress and more than 55% were in areas experiencing drought. In Colorado and California, 97 and 96% of the wells, respectively, were in regions with high or extremely high water stress.
