HSE & Sustainability
The Pawnee Carbon Sequestration Project, which would use a repurposed well, is planned to capture and store up to 400,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide, with first injection targeted for early 2027.
DNV notes that energy and industrial process-related carbon emissions will have dropped by 2050 by only 44% from today’s level, not even halfway to the net-zero pledge envisioned by the Paris climate agreement.
SPE's new Asset Integrity Technical Section brings together industry experts to advance best practices in reliability engineering, asset integrity, risk reduction, and infrastructure performance. The global community will focus on the safe, reliable, and sustainable operation of energy assets across both traditional and emerging energy sectors.
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Considering the current downturn in crude prices, there is a renewed interest in recycling produced water for reuse in hydraulic fracturing in the development of unconventional resource plays. -
If crude prices, rig counts, and tight oil production demonstrate a stronger upward trend in the months to come, US shale operators may find themselves with more produced water than they bargained for.
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Shell and GravityLight are working together in Kenya to convert the kinetic energy generated by the gravity of falling rocks to produce a safe, renewable source of light to those with no access to electricity .
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The US EPA’s 2016 New Source Performance Standards updated the 2012 standards by adding requirements for the industry to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, specifically methane. The 2016 NSPS also covers hydraulically fractured oil wells and production, processing, transmission and storage activities.
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Geophysicists from Stanford University have compiled a map of new maximum horizontal stress orientations in Texas and surrounding areas, potentially giving operators new information for avoiding seismic activity in their hydraulic fracturing operations.
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The Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality recently concluded that hydraulic fracturing operations were not the likely cause of well water contamination in a small town.
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Sourcing water for large multifracture stimulations in west Texas is a well-known constraint on oil and gas activities in the area. A 6-month pilot operation demonstrated that produced-water reuse is technically feasible and can be a cost-effective solution.
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This paper summarizes the benefits of using a bipolymer crosslinking system in environments where water quality cannot be guaranteed. It also demonstrates the yielded cost savings per well that are achievable when reusing 100% produced or flowback water for hydraulic fracturing.
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Water production normally increases as fields mature, and two main ways exist to deal with the produced water. One is to dispose of the produced water into dedicated disposal wells. The other is to reinject the produced water for pressure maintenance or sweep efficiency.
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With the US Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement as a cochair of the steering committee, SPE held a 2-day summit in April to discuss the development and implementation of an industrywide safety-data sharing framework.
