T285 Leading Edge of Produced Water Research: Impacts, Fingerprinting, and Science of Brines Associated with Hydrocarbon Production

Wednesday, 22 October 2014
8:00 AM - 12:00 PM
109

APPLICATIONS AND SCOPE OF THE NEW U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY PRODUCED WATERS GEOCHEMICAL DATABASE V2.0

Paper number: T285-15
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 11:40 AM – 11:55 AM

Authors

Abstract

The geochemistry of deep formation waters produced from oil, gas, and geothermal wells can be an important tool to: (a) interpret regional hydrogeology and basin fluid flow for hydrocarbon development; (b) provide information for disposal plans for water associated with hydrocarbon production or CO2storage; (c) chemically fingerprint formation brines; and (d) assess the safety of potential sources of agricultural or drinking water.

The U.S. Geological Survey recently released an updated and expanded produced waters database for the United States that provides insight into these geologic questions. The updated database, compiled from publically available sources, exhibits greater spatial coverage and includes not only major ion chemistry and basic physical parameters but also trace elements, isotopes, and time-series data for many of the nearly 160,000 samples. Sampled wells produce from conventional clastic and carbonate reservoirs, as well as from unconventional shale gas, tight gas, tight oil, coal bed methane, and geothermal reservoirs.

We will present some examples showing the utility and scope of the database, from small-scale subsets of data used to address water quality issues, to more regional subsets that address basin fluid flow and connectivity, to national-scale relationships that shed light on chemical and isotopic changes of connate waters over the Phanerozoic. We will also provide information on how to contribute new data to this valuable database.

The U.S. Geological Survey National Produced Waters Geochemical Database is available at: http://energy.usgs.gov/EnvironmentalAspects/EnvironmentalAspectsofEnergyProductionandUse/ProducedWaters.aspx#3822349-data