1. Water Use Analysis and Water Intensity Comparison
Stephen Goodwin
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Colorado State University
2. Basic Water and Energy Use Model
Formation
Oil Gas Water
Drilling
Water
Hydraulic
Fracturing
Water
Flowback
Water
Produced
Water
Deep
Well
Injection
Oil
Recovered
Gas
Recovered
Drilling
Energy
Hydrualic
Fracturing
Energy
Transportation
Energy
5. Reducing Water Intensity
Optimize water management with
transportation, piping, and locating permanent
and mobile treatment facility.
(Ashwin Dhanasekar)
Temporal and spatial characterization of
flowback and produced water quality and
volumes to determine what water can be
treated. (Bing Bai)
Optimize treatment approaches and dilution
with modeling and bench-scale testing.
(Ryan Hutcherson and Nasim Esmaeilirad)
Reduce water use for drilling and hydraulic
fracturing
Reduce energy use for drilling and hydraulic
fracturing
Increase energy recovery
CSU’s Center for Energy
Water Sustainability Research
Other Possibilities Indirectly
Addressed by CSU Research
6. How much water is required
to drill and hydraulically
fracture a well in Northern
Colorado?
7. Water Use: Sampling
WELD
LARIMER
ADAMS
MORGAN
BOULDER
ARAPAHOE
JEFFERSON
GILPIN
DENVER
CLEAR CREEK
GRAND
BROOMFIELD
WELD
LARIMER
ADAMS
MORGAN
BOULDER
ARAPAHOE
JEFFERSON
GILPIN
DENVER
CLEAR CREEK
GRAND
BROOMFIELD
Legend
ADAMS
BOULDER
ARAPAHOE
JEFFERSON
GILPIN
DENVER
CLEAR CREEK
GRAND
BROOMFIELD
Legend
Extended horizontal wells sampled
Horizontal wells sampled
Vertical wells sampled
Wattenberg Field (as defined by the COGCC on July 1, 2013)
ADAMS
MORG
BOULDER
ARAPAHOE
JEFFERSON
GILPIN
DENVER
CLEAR CREEK
GRAND
BROOMFIELD
Legend
Extended horizontal wells sampled
Horizontal wells sampled
Vertical wells sampled
Wattenberg Field (as defined by the COGCC on July 1, 2013)
decisions regarding future water and energy development. The
objective of this study is to provide a detailed assessment of
current water use and to determine the factors that have the
strongest influence on the total water use per well. These factors
include the well type (vertical, horizontal, or extended horizon-
tal), number of hydraulic fracturing stages, water use (drilling
or hydraulic fracturing), temporal, and spatial distribution.
2. Method
The wells included in the water use analysis are limited to
wells located in the Wattenberg field, drilled between January
1, 2010 to July 1, 2013, and operated by Noble Energy, Inc.
(Noble) with complete water use records available. For this
study, the Wattenberg field is defined by the Colorado Oil Gas
Conservation Commission’s (COGCC) GIS shape file accessed
on July 1, 2013 (Figure 1). To best assess current water require-
ments and predict future demands only wells drilled after 2010
Table 1: The count of sampled wells separated by year and well type.
Vertical Horizontal Extended horizontal
2010 181 6 0
2011 408 69 0
2012 227 196 2
2013 5 120 13
Total 821 391 15
and set the casings is defined as drilling water. Water used to
fracture the shale, carry the proppant, and flush the well is de-
fined as hydraulic fracturing water.
Drilling and hydraulic fracturing water consumption records
for each well are collected using Noble Energy’s WellView
software [9] and separated by year. WellView is part of the
Peloton suite of software used for collecting and organizing oil
field data. Drilling and hydraulic fracturing reports are added
8. 0 2 4 6 8
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
Water use (million gallons)
Density
Total water use by well type
Vertical wells
Horizontal wells
Extended horizontal wells
9. 0 2 4 6 8
0
0.1
Water use (million gallons)
Figure 2: The distribution of drilling and hydraulic fracturing water use for ver-
tical, horizontal, and extended horizontal wells is illustrated with a histogram.
Vertical wells are shown in green, horizontal wells are shown in blue, and ex-
tended horizontal wells are shown in red.
Table 2: Descriptive statistics for total water use separated by well type.
Total Vertical Horizontal Extended horizontal
Q1 332,900 2,607,000 6,391,000
Q2 360,000 2,891,000 6,578,000
Q3 462,900 3,168,000 7,096,000
IQR 129,000 561,600 704,800
Skewness 9.1 2.9 -2.0
Kurtosis 99 20 5.0
Hydraulic fracturing uses the majority of the total water for
all of the well types. For vertical wells, a median value of 81%
(Q1=77%, Q3=85%) of the total water is used for hydraulic
When the total water use for horizontal and extended hor-
izontal wells are normalized to the number of hydraulic frac-
turing stages, the distribution of the total water per hydraulic
fracturing stage is similar (Figure 4). When vertical wells are
normalized to the vertical distance of the hydraulic fracturing
there is not a correlation between the total water use (r2
=0.081)
or hydraulic fracturing water use (r2
=0.073).
Vertical wells are significantly influenced by the type of hy-
draulic fracturing fluid used. The normalized hydraulic fractur-
ing water use is significantly less for gelled fractures (Mdn=544
gallons per foot) than slickwater fractures (Mdn=1,340 gallons
per foot) for vertical wells ( 2
(1)=42.4, p<0.05). Horizontal
wells do not have enough slickwater data to compare gelled and
slickwater hydraulic fracturing water use.
Only the total water use for vertical wells shows any sig-
nificant temporal variation ( 2
(3)=13.09, p<0.05) . The to-
tal water use for vertical wells has decreased slightly from
2011 (Mdn=362,000) to 2012 (Mdn=352,000). Horizontal
( 2
(3)=6.03, p=.01103) or extended horizontal ( 2
(3)=2.45,
p=0.117) wells do not show any significant temporal variation.
The spatial distribution of the total water use is shown in Fig-
ure 6. Vertical wells are shown in green, horizontal wells are
3
Water Use0
1
2
3
4
Wateruse(mi
Drilling
Hydraulic
fracturing
Drilling
Hydraulic
fracturing
Drilling
Hydraulic
fracturing
Vertical
wells
Horizontal
wells
Extended
horiozontal wells
Figure 7: The distribution of drilling and hydraulic fracturing water use for
vertical, horizontal, and extended horizontal wells. The interquartile range is
defined by the blue box, the median is defined by the red line, and outliers
extending beyond the 10th and 90th percentile are shown with red pluses.
Table 3: Descriptive statistics for drilling and hydraulic fracturing water use
separated by well type.
Drilling Vertical Horizontal Extended horizontal
Q1 62,160 94,500 148,300
Q2 74,760 116,300 180,800
Q3 89,040 140,700 202,300
IQR 26,880 46,240 54,020
Skewness 12 0.97 0.40
Kurtosis 240 2.3 0.54
Hydraulic Vertical Horizontal Extended horizontal
Fracturing
Q1 269,400 2,490,000 6,127,000
Q2 278,900 2,792,000 6,517,000
Q3 395,000 3,033,000 6,883,000
IQR 125,700 543,000 757,300
Skewness 9.2 2.9 -2.1
Kurtosis 100 20 5.3
continue to in the future Table 1.
of water required to hydraulically fracture a vertical well. Hy-
draulic fracturing with slickwater requires nearly two times the
water per hydraulic fracturing distance than using gelled fluids.
It is also important to consider the volume of oil and gas
recovered for each well type when comparing the total water
use. Water use is often normalized to the amount of energy
recovered with the water and is defined as the water intensity.
This measure is an important value to consider for best water
management practices. Although extended horizontal wells use
the most water, it is likely they also recover much more oil and
gas. An analysis of the water intensity for each well in the
future will be important to optimizing water management.
This study did not include flowback or produced water es-
timates for each well. Flowback is the water that returns to
the surface before production. This water is characterized by
high solids content and closely resembles the hydraulic frac-
turing fluid. Produced water is the water that returns with the
oil and gas. This water is characterized by high concentrations
of salts and closely resembles the formation water. E↵orts are
being made to treat and reuse this water and further reduce the
demands on water resources. As water reuse becomes more
prevalent in the Wattenberg field, the net water use should be
considered.
The majority of the total water use for horizontal and ex-
tended horizontal wells consists of hydraulic fracturing water.
This results in large volumes of flowback water from horizon-
tal and extended horizontal wells. The impact of water reuse for
these wells becomes much more considerable than with vertical
wells.
5. Conclusions
As horizontal wells become more prevalent in the future, wa-
ter demand predictions should be based on the number of hy-
draulic fracturing stages rather than the number of wells. The
number of hydraulic fracturing stages can range from three to
45 and the total water use can vary from a few hundred thou-
sand gallons up to nearly eight million gallons per well. It is
a mistake to simply assume that all of the wells use a specific
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Wateruse(milliongallons)
Drilling and hydraulic fracturing water by well type
Drilling
Hydraulic
fracturing
Drilling
Hydraulic
fracturing
Drilling
Hydraulic
fracturing
Vertical
wells
Horizontal
wells
Extended
horiozontal wells
12. Total Water Use by Year
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
2010 2011 2012 2013
Vertical wells
Totalwateruse(milliongallons)
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
2010 2011 2012 2013
Horizontal wells
13. Water Use by Year
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
2010 2011 2012 2013
Drilling water
Vertical wells
Wateruse(milliongallons)
0
2
4
6
8
10
2010 2011 2012 2013
Hydraulic fracturing water
Vertical wells
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
2010 2011 2012 2013
Drilling water
Horizontal wells
Wateruse(milliongallons)
0
2
4
6
8
10
2010 2011 2012 2013
Hydraulic fracturing water
Horizontal wells
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
2010 2011 2012 2013
Drilling water
Horizontal wells
Wateruse(milliongallons)
0
2
4
6
8
10
2010 2011 2012 2013
Hydraulic fracturing water
Horizontal wells
14. Total Water Use Normalized by the
Number of Hydraulic Fracturing Stages
5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Number of hydraulic fracturing stages
Hydraulicfracturingwateruse(millionsofgallons)
Horizontal wells Extended
horizontal wells r2=0.66
15. Total Water Use Normalized by the
Number of Hydraulic Fracturing Stages
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4
0
0.2
0.4
Density
Ratio of total water use and number of hydraulic fracturing stages
Extended horizontal wells
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4
0
0.2
0.4
Total water use per hydraulic fracturing stage (million gallons)
Density
Horizontal wells
18. Water Use per Well (First Study, 2010-2011)
Fracturing Water Total
72 0.07224
84 0.07392
98 0.07476
22 0.08274
84 0.08484
82 0.0861
76 0.08694
88 0.08694
84 0.08694
02 0.08736
84 0.08736
42 0.0882
32 0.08883
56 0.09072
82 0.09618
492 0.121212
456 0.166026
476 0.169596
55 0.17241
92 0.1911
62 0.20916
042 0.222222
156 0.227976
908 0.232428
218 0.238308
022 0.243852
734 0.290934
724 0.293244
03 0.29463
06 0.29715
458 0.304458
614 0.307314
312 0.307692
94 0.30954
202 0.310632
924 0.312144
026 0.313866
194 0.314454
126 0.314706
72 0.31479
898 0.315588
202 0.315882
312 0.316512
834 0.317814
478 0.319788
138 0.321678
04 0.32256
3 0.32256
254 0.322854
186 0.323106
848
1
2
3
4
5
0 100 200 300 400
WaterConsumption(milliongallons)
Noble Well Water Consumption Ranking
Horizontal Drilling Water
Horizontal Hydraulic Fracturing Water
Vertical Drilling Water
Vertical Hydraulic Fracturing Water
(Gallons)
Drilling Water
Hydraulic
Fracturing Water
Total Water
(Gallons)(Gallons)(Gallons)
Horizontal
Well
Vertical
Well
129,000 2,720,000 2,840,000
76,800 305,000 382,000
445 NOBLE WELLS: 386 VERTICAL AND 59 HORIZONTAL
19. Water and Energy Consumption
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
Drilling Water Hydraulic Fracturing Water Total Water
WaterConsumed(MMgal)
Water Use for Sampled Wells
25. Water Consumption of Energy Resource Extraction, Processing, and Conversion
reserve estimates ranging from 2.1 to 6.7 MMBtu (2.0 to 6.5 BCF) per well, giving a company-
wide range of 0.6 to 1.8 gal/MMBtu (See Table 2-2). (Chesapeake Energy 2010)
Table 2-2: Estimates of water consumption for different shale plays (Chesapeake Energy 2010)
Water consumption per well (million gal) Gas reserves per well Water
intensity
Shale play
Drilling Hydraulic
Fracturing
Total BCF MMBtu
(million)
gal/MMBtu
Barnett 0.3 3.8 4.1 2.7 2.7 1.5
Fayetteville 0.1 4.0 4.1 2.4 2.5 1.7
Haynesville 0.6 5.0 5.6 6.5 6.7 0.8
Marcellus 0.1 5.5 5.6 4.2 4.3 1.3
Typical min 1.0 3.5 4.5 6.5 6.7 0.6
Typical max 0.1 3.5 3.6 2.0 2.1 1.8
Average 1.3
The estimates are specific to one company’s operations (i.e. Chesapeake Energy) and reflect
typical water-intensity across its asset portfolio, not necessarily a representative range of water-
intensity for the industry as a whole. But alternative estimates for Marcellus and Barnett provide
Water Intensity Comparison
Source: E. Mielke, L. D. Anadon, and V. Narayanamurti. Water consumption of energy resource extraction, processing, and
conversion. Discussion Paper 2010-15, Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, 79 JFK
Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, October 2010.