NGI: Best Water-Use Methods for Unconventional Wells Hit and Miss
Operators may argue that unconventional drilling using hydraulic fracturing (fracking) doesn't require a lot of the overall water used in the United States. But to paraphrase former Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill: all water is local.
That's the consensus of an analysis about North American drilling and water use by analysts at Societe Generale (SG), who earlier this month published "U.S. Shale and Water Risk: between a rock and a hard place."
Research collaborators Niamh Whooley, Carole Crozat and Rohit Malpani evaluated 26 North American-based onshore exploration and production (E&P) companies under SG's coverage, including large independents such as Anadarko Petroleum Corp., Apache Corp., ConocoPhillips, Devon Energy Corp., Encana Corp. and EOG Resources Inc.