Fracking with Seawater – Proven Technology
Who We Are
Seawater Technologies LLC is a small private company with a BIG IDEA! Our goal is to reduce or eliminate the use of fresh water for drilling and fracturing by replacing that huge volume (billions of barrels a year) of fresh water with seawater. Simple, right? Convincing the skeptics and changing old habits is hard work, and we gladly accept the challenge in the name of preserving fresh water for agriculture and people. When it comes to fracturing oil and gas wells, Seawater is the RIGHT thing to do!
The industry used to think and say that higher salinity waters were too difficult to use for fracturing, that seawater was too dirty and too full of bacteria to be used for fracturing. Well, all of those myths are not accurate. Seawater has no more bacteria in it than clean fresh water. Anybody that has ever spent time swimming in the ocean knows that seawater can heal cuts. Like we told you on the HOME page, all the O&G reservoirs of planet Earth, were formed in seawater, so, why would fresh water be better for the reservoir? It isn’t. Most people do not know that wells have been fractured offshore with seawater since the 1970’s. Salinity does delay guars from gelling as fast as they do in fresh water, but the industry certainly knows how to use seawater for fracturing; there are many Society of Petroleum Engineers papers (SPE) on the subject; many written in the past 3 years. The industry has spent millions of dollars a year adding salts to fresh water frac waters to make them more compatible with the reservoirs. Ironic, isn’t it, when seawater has everything you need in it naturally? Continuing on with the chemistry of fracturing, Seawater Technologies LLC offer a full suite of frac chemicals, used to viscosify the seawater, provide excellent sand transport, and even have a shear thinning fluid that is easy to pump and yet, when in the reservoir, it provides better sand transport than conventional guar based linear gels. Our High Viscosity Friction Reducers (HVFR’s) are completely compatible with seawater, regardless of where you are on Earth. The weight of seawater actually makes your frac job costs lower in one aspect; the weight of seawater is greater than the weight of freshwater, so the added hydro static reduces wellhead pressures, and saves the operator money on hydraulic horsepower used for fracturing.
The Technical Aspects of Using Seawater as a Base Fluid for Fracturing Onshore
We recommend you read SPE 50777; a good overall look at the use of seawater as a base fluid for Borate Cross-linked Gels. We have linked several other good articles. Over 100,000 frac jobs have been performed offshore, using seawater, so we are not asking the industry to make some blind leap of faith into a new technology. Instead, we are asking the industry to break some old habits, dismiss some old paradigms, and look to the oceans for their unlimited supply of drilling and frac water, all courtesy of Mother Nature. Please contact us if you have any questions.
How do you get started using seawater for your frac base-fluid?
In Texas, for example, the “TCEQ” - the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, regulates the use of all surface waters, including fresh and seawater. The TCEQ actually treats them the same way; you must apply to take the fluid. Contact us if we can help you get started. Keep in mind, it might take 3 – 7 months to get it all on paper with the state, so start early. The application does cost approximately $1,800.00 dollars, but the seawater is free.
Most states in the U.S.A. and other countries have similar policies concerning extracting seawater for oilfield operations, so check locally before helping yourself to drilling and frac water.
The industry used to think and say that higher salinity waters were too difficult to use for fracturing, that seawater was too dirty and too full of bacteria to be used for fracturing. Well, all of those myths are not accurate. Seawater has no more bacteria in it than clean fresh water. Anybody that has ever spent time swimming in the ocean knows that seawater can heal cuts. Like we told you on the HOME page, all the O&G reservoirs of planet Earth, were formed in seawater, so, why would fresh water be better for the reservoir? It isn’t. Most people do not know that wells have been fractured offshore with seawater since the 1970’s. Salinity does delay guars from gelling as fast as they do in fresh water, but the industry certainly knows how to use seawater for fracturing; there are many Society of Petroleum Engineers papers (SPE) on the subject; many written in the past 3 years. The industry has spent millions of dollars a year adding salts to fresh water frac waters to make them more compatible with the reservoirs. Ironic, isn’t it, when seawater has everything you need in it naturally? Continuing on with the chemistry of fracturing, Seawater Technologies LLC offer a full suite of frac chemicals, used to viscosify the seawater, provide excellent sand transport, and even have a shear thinning fluid that is easy to pump and yet, when in the reservoir, it provides better sand transport than conventional guar based linear gels. Our High Viscosity Friction Reducers (HVFR’s) are completely compatible with seawater, regardless of where you are on Earth. The weight of seawater actually makes your frac job costs lower in one aspect; the weight of seawater is greater than the weight of freshwater, so the added hydro static reduces wellhead pressures, and saves the operator money on hydraulic horsepower used for fracturing.
The Technical Aspects of Using Seawater as a Base Fluid for Fracturing Onshore
We recommend you read SPE 50777; a good overall look at the use of seawater as a base fluid for Borate Cross-linked Gels. We have linked several other good articles. Over 100,000 frac jobs have been performed offshore, using seawater, so we are not asking the industry to make some blind leap of faith into a new technology. Instead, we are asking the industry to break some old habits, dismiss some old paradigms, and look to the oceans for their unlimited supply of drilling and frac water, all courtesy of Mother Nature. Please contact us if you have any questions.
How do you get started using seawater for your frac base-fluid?
In Texas, for example, the “TCEQ” - the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, regulates the use of all surface waters, including fresh and seawater. The TCEQ actually treats them the same way; you must apply to take the fluid. Contact us if we can help you get started. Keep in mind, it might take 3 – 7 months to get it all on paper with the state, so start early. The application does cost approximately $1,800.00 dollars, but the seawater is free.
Most states in the U.S.A. and other countries have similar policies concerning extracting seawater for oilfield operations, so check locally before helping yourself to drilling and frac water.
Update from April 24, 2019
Seawater Technologies LLC – 3 Page Summary Document (Rev.4.24.19)
Oilfield waters are a multi-billion-dollar business today. Fresh and brackish water sourcing, hauling, pipeline transportation, storage, produced water treatment (for re-use, disposal, EOR – enhanced oil recovery, and fracturing) are just a few of the various oilfield uses. ARAMCO, in Saudi Arabia, and ONGC in India, use seawater for EOR (Enhanced Oil Recovery) in the Ghawar and Mumbai High oilfields (respectively), as seawater is free and available without any limits.
Seawater is what was actually present in the reservoir rock pore spaces when the great marine environment reservoirs of the world were formed; sandstones too. Remember, the reservoirs (oil traps) were originally filled with seawater, before the oil migrated into them.
Oilfield “produced water” is normally classified into two categories; flow-back waters from fracturing wells and the eventual waters that are naturally produced along with natural gas and oil. It may contain salts, metals, hydrocarbons, polymers, and other compounds, which need to be cleaned / removed before re-use, or disposed of into saltwater disposal wells (SWD’s). Most companies choose to dispose of it by injecting it deep underground using SWD’s.
The bottom line is this; our oil and gas industry does not re-use much produced water for hydraulic fracturing (much less than 30%) and there is still a huge volume of clean frac “source water” needed, even in the most mature oil and gas basins in the world (not to mention areas of the world which have no fresh water and no brackish groundwater, in the volumes required for industrialized fracturing).
Our proposition is so simple; use Seawater onshore, where economically and logistically feasible, as a base fluid for fracturing, and try to stop using fresh water for fracturing in water stressed areas of the world. The industry likes green and sustainable solutions, when they are cheaper, easier, or have immediate uptake with management (who might be incentivized otherwise). However, come up with a solution that is different, novel, not part of the status quo, or requires a heavier lift with a 5-year payout, and it goes dead. WHY? Why not ask me?
What the O & G industry is doing with fresh water usage in fracturing is not sustainable, nor is it with due diligence to the longevity of our fresh water systems. Our grand-children will pay the price for our wasteful uses of fresh water. Consider this, if the industry would have worked together, and built a 60” pipeline for 400 miles from the Gulf of Mexico to the Permian basin, we would have saved over 18 Billion bbls. of fresh water over the past 10 years; and paid off the pipeline! Which means, we would be offsetting over 20% of the Permian’s water consumption today; with basically free frac water; just electrical moving costs.
Seawater Technologies LLC has patented the whole process in the U.S.A. and in many of the water stressed countries where shale fracturing is evolving. We are very interested in talking to end-users, operators, investors, and buyers in 2019; offering operators a global, or country-by-country license, where applicable. 2019 is the bargain year!
Moreover, we would entertain selling the whole patent portfolio.
Our 37 years of oilfield experiences and travels have let us see and work in many oilfields, in many countries, and meet some great people along the way. We want to see their countries prosper just the same way the U.S.A. has prospered by fracturing unconventionals. Three frac crews operating in the KAROO of South Africa would transform that country, in a good way.
For example, Frac Water is a big problem in South Africa (Chevron, SHELL, Falcon Oil and Gas Ltd., BUNDU); and a 60 – 80 mile, 24” HDPE pipeline from the Indian Ocean to the Karoo would solve the frac water challenge there, providing limitless frac water in the Karoo. We could look at EXIM financing, if not a consortium of operators from that area (Bundu (Challenger), FALCON, CHEVRON, and Shell). The frac chemistry is done; Seawater Technologies LLC even offers “HVFR’s” and have tested our chemistry with seawater (as have ARAMCO engineers for use in Saudi Arabia, as documented in SPE papers). I would be very pleased to visit with any potential investor / buyer. I dream of the day we are fracturing say, in South Africa, India, the Ukraine, Australia, Poland, or China, with seawater. Let me know if you would like to see additional information. Thank You for your time, Brent Smith. 1-307-359-8627.
brent.smith@seawatertechnologies.com or brentsmith48@yahoo.com
Estimated (!) - 9 Billion bbls. of water used in fracturing Oil & Gas Wells each year, now.
80% of that in the U.S.A.; and of that, about 50% in Texas; mostly in the Permian Basin.
For shale and tight oil & gas horizontal completions, a 24/7 (~22 days a month pumping with moves), frac crew today in the Permian Basin consumes approximately 750,000 bbls. / month; and growing. So, for daylight only crews (like many international crews) - A number of 400,000 bbls. / crew / month is useful, and accurate; or…. 4,800,000 bbls. / year; and growing.
List of Patents – 22 patents in 18 countries to date: (waiting on U.A.E. and India)
Most patents are valid through 2034 (15 more years), but that date can vary slightly based on filing date. 4x Seawater (USA):
1. # 8,807,221 August 19, 2014
2. # 8,733,442 May 27, 2014
3. # 8,833,456 September 16, 2014
4. # 9,970,277 May 15, 2018
Also, the 5th U.S.A. patent – dealing with R.O. Water (USA) (R.O./Deal Waste) # US 9,862,871 B2. January 9, 2018. This approved patent claims the discharge waste of R.O. and Desal plants, as a base fluid for fracturing.
Note: There are over 40 brackish water desal plants in Texas alone; some near the Eagle Ford and some coming on line in the Permian Basin. Brackish water desal waste is only about a third of the salinity of seawater and is easily combined with fresh or produced water for fracturing.
Updates on patents:
* KSA (Saudi Arabia) Patent # 5663. December 20, 2017 ARAMCO has already trialed seawater and are evaluating for several remote / arid regions. (Several SPE papers).
* South Africa Patent # 2015/06339 November 30, 2016 Bundu expects to be drilling in 2020, next year. We are actively chasing Bundu (Challenger), Falcon Oil and Gas Ltd. (partnered with CHEVRON), and SHELL. The right thing to do is form a consortium and start the pipeline to the KAROO; there is no fresh or brackish water for fracturing.
* United Arab Emirates – UAE - Not Allowed or Granted yet; still being reviewed. BTW - TOTAL of France just signed a big contract for fracturing Unconventionals with ADNOC.
* India. Not Allowed or Granted yet; (our patents drag on in India!)
* Australia Allowed; 100% finalized in April 2019. I should have our certificate any day in May 2019. Shale development is progressing nicely, and some is fairly near the ocean.
* China Patent # ZL 2014800230152.9 July 28, 2017 Shale development is progressing nicely. Actively chasing CNPC, SINOPEC, YANGCHANG. There are some big coastal shale fields, with severe fresh water stress in Eastern China.
* Ukraine Patent # 117676 September 10, 2018. Conventionals and Shale development are progressing nicely.
* U.S.A. Listed above
* Mexico Granted; awaiting patent # issue, soon. Blocks of shales onshore will be awarded soon. Lewis Energy is actively fracturing unconventionals in the Burgos Basin.
* Europe - European Union Individual Countries listed below. The UK is probably leading the pack here……. Slow to develop amid frac bans and environmental concerns, but places like Poland, Romania, the U.K. and possibly Turkey, are coming on.
Seawater Technologies, LLC – (SWT) anticipated the fracturing water demands in a world critical of using fresh water for oil and gas exploration. Based on global exposure and experience, SWT predicted the demand of frac water in regions of the world highly stressed with fresh water, or where fresh water is non-existent. The most ironic aspect of SWT, is that we are a bit early to the frac market, which is still developing.
NOTE: the frac job sizes in the USA have increased 400% since 2013! And growing.
Seawater Technologies, LLC was recently awarded our European Union patents. They are not yet 100% finalized and documented on GOOGLE (it takes time to get them published online), but these are granted via European Patent No. 2994171.
* Latvia, Poland, Romania, Sweden, Turkey, Germany, Denmark, Spain, France, United Kingdom and Lithuania
Seawater Technologies LLC – 3 Page Summary Document (Rev.4.24.19)
Oilfield waters are a multi-billion-dollar business today. Fresh and brackish water sourcing, hauling, pipeline transportation, storage, produced water treatment (for re-use, disposal, EOR – enhanced oil recovery, and fracturing) are just a few of the various oilfield uses. ARAMCO, in Saudi Arabia, and ONGC in India, use seawater for EOR (Enhanced Oil Recovery) in the Ghawar and Mumbai High oilfields (respectively), as seawater is free and available without any limits.
Seawater is what was actually present in the reservoir rock pore spaces when the great marine environment reservoirs of the world were formed; sandstones too. Remember, the reservoirs (oil traps) were originally filled with seawater, before the oil migrated into them.
Oilfield “produced water” is normally classified into two categories; flow-back waters from fracturing wells and the eventual waters that are naturally produced along with natural gas and oil. It may contain salts, metals, hydrocarbons, polymers, and other compounds, which need to be cleaned / removed before re-use, or disposed of into saltwater disposal wells (SWD’s). Most companies choose to dispose of it by injecting it deep underground using SWD’s.
The bottom line is this; our oil and gas industry does not re-use much produced water for hydraulic fracturing (much less than 30%) and there is still a huge volume of clean frac “source water” needed, even in the most mature oil and gas basins in the world (not to mention areas of the world which have no fresh water and no brackish groundwater, in the volumes required for industrialized fracturing).
Our proposition is so simple; use Seawater onshore, where economically and logistically feasible, as a base fluid for fracturing, and try to stop using fresh water for fracturing in water stressed areas of the world. The industry likes green and sustainable solutions, when they are cheaper, easier, or have immediate uptake with management (who might be incentivized otherwise). However, come up with a solution that is different, novel, not part of the status quo, or requires a heavier lift with a 5-year payout, and it goes dead. WHY? Why not ask me?
What the O & G industry is doing with fresh water usage in fracturing is not sustainable, nor is it with due diligence to the longevity of our fresh water systems. Our grand-children will pay the price for our wasteful uses of fresh water. Consider this, if the industry would have worked together, and built a 60” pipeline for 400 miles from the Gulf of Mexico to the Permian basin, we would have saved over 18 Billion bbls. of fresh water over the past 10 years; and paid off the pipeline! Which means, we would be offsetting over 20% of the Permian’s water consumption today; with basically free frac water; just electrical moving costs.
Seawater Technologies LLC has patented the whole process in the U.S.A. and in many of the water stressed countries where shale fracturing is evolving. We are very interested in talking to end-users, operators, investors, and buyers in 2019; offering operators a global, or country-by-country license, where applicable. 2019 is the bargain year!
Moreover, we would entertain selling the whole patent portfolio.
Our 37 years of oilfield experiences and travels have let us see and work in many oilfields, in many countries, and meet some great people along the way. We want to see their countries prosper just the same way the U.S.A. has prospered by fracturing unconventionals. Three frac crews operating in the KAROO of South Africa would transform that country, in a good way.
For example, Frac Water is a big problem in South Africa (Chevron, SHELL, Falcon Oil and Gas Ltd., BUNDU); and a 60 – 80 mile, 24” HDPE pipeline from the Indian Ocean to the Karoo would solve the frac water challenge there, providing limitless frac water in the Karoo. We could look at EXIM financing, if not a consortium of operators from that area (Bundu (Challenger), FALCON, CHEVRON, and Shell). The frac chemistry is done; Seawater Technologies LLC even offers “HVFR’s” and have tested our chemistry with seawater (as have ARAMCO engineers for use in Saudi Arabia, as documented in SPE papers). I would be very pleased to visit with any potential investor / buyer. I dream of the day we are fracturing say, in South Africa, India, the Ukraine, Australia, Poland, or China, with seawater. Let me know if you would like to see additional information. Thank You for your time, Brent Smith. 1-307-359-8627.
brent.smith@seawatertechnologies.com or brentsmith48@yahoo.com
Estimated (!) - 9 Billion bbls. of water used in fracturing Oil & Gas Wells each year, now.
80% of that in the U.S.A.; and of that, about 50% in Texas; mostly in the Permian Basin.
For shale and tight oil & gas horizontal completions, a 24/7 (~22 days a month pumping with moves), frac crew today in the Permian Basin consumes approximately 750,000 bbls. / month; and growing. So, for daylight only crews (like many international crews) - A number of 400,000 bbls. / crew / month is useful, and accurate; or…. 4,800,000 bbls. / year; and growing.
List of Patents – 22 patents in 18 countries to date: (waiting on U.A.E. and India)
Most patents are valid through 2034 (15 more years), but that date can vary slightly based on filing date. 4x Seawater (USA):
1. # 8,807,221 August 19, 2014
2. # 8,733,442 May 27, 2014
3. # 8,833,456 September 16, 2014
4. # 9,970,277 May 15, 2018
Also, the 5th U.S.A. patent – dealing with R.O. Water (USA) (R.O./Deal Waste) # US 9,862,871 B2. January 9, 2018. This approved patent claims the discharge waste of R.O. and Desal plants, as a base fluid for fracturing.
Note: There are over 40 brackish water desal plants in Texas alone; some near the Eagle Ford and some coming on line in the Permian Basin. Brackish water desal waste is only about a third of the salinity of seawater and is easily combined with fresh or produced water for fracturing.
Updates on patents:
* KSA (Saudi Arabia) Patent # 5663. December 20, 2017 ARAMCO has already trialed seawater and are evaluating for several remote / arid regions. (Several SPE papers).
* South Africa Patent # 2015/06339 November 30, 2016 Bundu expects to be drilling in 2020, next year. We are actively chasing Bundu (Challenger), Falcon Oil and Gas Ltd. (partnered with CHEVRON), and SHELL. The right thing to do is form a consortium and start the pipeline to the KAROO; there is no fresh or brackish water for fracturing.
* United Arab Emirates – UAE - Not Allowed or Granted yet; still being reviewed. BTW - TOTAL of France just signed a big contract for fracturing Unconventionals with ADNOC.
* India. Not Allowed or Granted yet; (our patents drag on in India!)
* Australia Allowed; 100% finalized in April 2019. I should have our certificate any day in May 2019. Shale development is progressing nicely, and some is fairly near the ocean.
* China Patent # ZL 2014800230152.9 July 28, 2017 Shale development is progressing nicely. Actively chasing CNPC, SINOPEC, YANGCHANG. There are some big coastal shale fields, with severe fresh water stress in Eastern China.
* Ukraine Patent # 117676 September 10, 2018. Conventionals and Shale development are progressing nicely.
* U.S.A. Listed above
* Mexico Granted; awaiting patent # issue, soon. Blocks of shales onshore will be awarded soon. Lewis Energy is actively fracturing unconventionals in the Burgos Basin.
* Europe - European Union Individual Countries listed below. The UK is probably leading the pack here……. Slow to develop amid frac bans and environmental concerns, but places like Poland, Romania, the U.K. and possibly Turkey, are coming on.
Seawater Technologies, LLC – (SWT) anticipated the fracturing water demands in a world critical of using fresh water for oil and gas exploration. Based on global exposure and experience, SWT predicted the demand of frac water in regions of the world highly stressed with fresh water, or where fresh water is non-existent. The most ironic aspect of SWT, is that we are a bit early to the frac market, which is still developing.
NOTE: the frac job sizes in the USA have increased 400% since 2013! And growing.
Seawater Technologies, LLC was recently awarded our European Union patents. They are not yet 100% finalized and documented on GOOGLE (it takes time to get them published online), but these are granted via European Patent No. 2994171.
* Latvia, Poland, Romania, Sweden, Turkey, Germany, Denmark, Spain, France, United Kingdom and Lithuania