More Drillers Are Recycling Their Fracking Fluid
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Scott Detrow
Scott Detrow / StateImpact Pennsylvania
These bins at a Cabot fracking fluid recycling facility separate water from brine and chemicals
More natural gas drillers are treating and reusing their hydraulic fracturing fluid. The Wall Street Journal provides an update on the trend:
After a well is fracked, contractors typically clean the water that flows back out of the well by filtering it or adding a chemical that attracts small solid particles, making it easier to remove these contaminants. Some companies treat water at the well, while others bring it to a facility built nearby.
Fourteen percent of water used to frack a well in central Pennsylvania is now recycled, up from less than 1% two years ago, according to the Susquehanna River Basin Commission, which monitors water usage.
Clay Terry, strategic business manager of Halliburton’s Water Solutions unit, said operators in areas such as Texas have been slow to embrace recycling, largely because using injection wells there is fairly inexpensive. But there are growing economic benefits to recycling water, he said, and political ones, too.
For more on how water is used during the fracking process, check out this “Burning Questions” article we published last year.
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