PBIOS - October 2021 - 126

Permian Basin Reports
shovel-ready to it being full and ready to
supply a completion.
Construction companies can build a
pit of any size, but Aro says most people
favor round numbers, such as 500,000 or
a million barrels. He says, " To size the
pit, operators project how much water
their wells will produce so they can calculate
how quickly the pit will fill. That
should be compared with the drilling and
completion program's demand for water
to make sure the pit can keep pace. I have
been on locations where it couldn't and
the frac job had to stop. "
Growing Volumes
As completion designs have evolved,
the volume of water that needs to be
moved to the well pad has grown, observes
Enrique Proaño, vice president of
water management solutions for Cudd
Energy Services. " A completion crew that
is working a standard two-mile lateral zipper
with 60 stages per well and pumping
12,000 barrels a stage likely averages
about eight stages a day, " he relates. " That
means the pad will need 96,000 barrels a
day, or 720,000 for each well. "
While job sizes have begun to stabilize,
Proaño predicts that each pad's
water needs will continue rising as completion
efficiency improves. He says the
move from zipper fracs to simulfracs is a
particularly striking example, as it involves
going from alternating wells to
completing two at once.
" To get the necessary water volumes
at a reasonable cost, many operators use
a mix of freshwater and produced water
or 100% produced water, with the exact
ratio depending on availability, " Proaño
notes. " Over time, the percentage of produced
water has grown as friction reducers
have become robust enough to be
effective in high TDS water. "
According to Proaño, one of the
biggest questions facing the industry is
what level of treatment is needed before
sending water down hole. " We are not
clear on how water quality affects the
reservoir, " he acknowledges. " When do
we need to remove all the oxidizable
species and most of the solids from water,
and when can we get away with using almost
raw water that only has a biocide
and perhaps a scale inhibitor? "
That is a difficult question because
low-quality water's effects on production
can take years to manifest, Proaño
says. " We have tried comparing production
from wells completed with various
water qualities, but even when we
can see a difference, it can be hard to
determine whether water quality is the
cause, given the considerable variation
in lateral lengths, stage counts, proppant
concentrations, frac fluid designs
and other elements. "
Proaño adds that completion techniques
evolve so quickly that in the rare
cases historical data offers a good comparison,
it may no longer be relevant.
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