RIASSUNTO
Southwestern Energy (SWN) is committed to being neutral regarding the use of fresh water in our operations by 2016. This means that we will essentially erase our consumptive fresh water footprint by reducing our fresh water usage and replenishing any fresh water that we do use, barrel for barrel, through conservation projects. These projects are located in the areas where SWN operates, and are designed to improve water quality and availability for the environment and communities around us. To meet this commitment, the company launched the Energy Conserving Water (ECH2O) initiative in 2013.
Achieving ECH2O’s goals centers on four key elements: protection of water resources, 2) reduction of water used in our operations, innovation to efficiently utilize alternative, non-fresh water sources, and conservation to improve or replenish water resources.
SWN recognizes that water is a precious resource, and we do a number of things to pursue the protection of water resources around our operations. As an example, SWN supports research for new methods to inspect and confirm wellbore integrity to protect groundwater resources.
To reduce water usage in our operations, SWN is evaluating and testing new technologies and methodologies that allow us to stimulate wells with less water, while maintaining, or improving, well productivity, realizing the criticality to deliver highly productive and cost-efficient wells, while achieving our ECH2O commitment.
We also seek to reuse as much flowback fluid and produced water as practicable in our operations, and source other non-potable water types that are not economically useful for public purposes. An important consideration for alternative water types is that the water must be compatible with our completion procedures for well stimulation. Each operational area has its own individual hydrologic conditions and understanding these conditions will lead us to those alternative waters that are suitable to pursue.
This paper will present our approach to achieving fresh water neutral across our operations, how we’re managing and utilizing alternative water types, our evaluation and use of new ideas and technology to reduce water volumes, and how we are balancing our fresh water usage through conservation projects.