According to the oil and gas industry, the world’s largest provider of fracking services is creating a paradigm shift for the industry.  Their goal is for the entire oil and gas industry to use an average of 25% less fresh water in fracking operations by the end of 2015.  In 2012 Halliburton, one of the world’s largest providers of oil and gas field services, boosted its savings from the use of recycled water in the drilling technique to as much as $400,000 per well in North Dakota’s Bakken Field.  It was noted that the Bakken wells cost an average of $10 million to drill and complete and that 20% or $2 million of this total is attributed to water costs.

It is clear that the best solution to solve the water problems of the fracking industry is to reduce the use of fresh water and increase the use of recycled water. The obvious and best source of potential recycled water is the wastewater, which returns during the course of the fracking process and which represents 35% of the total water cost involved in the process. As discussed above, this wastewater contains a variety of hydrocarbons, salts, iron concentrates, and chemicals that is designated as contaminated wastewater and is typically disposed of by transport to offsite locations.

It is generally understood in this industry that contaminated wastewater cannot be recycled without first treating and removing a minimum of 80% of the contaminants.  At present, there is no single device or system on the market that has the ability to achieve this 80% requirement.  The conventional flotation, gravity, and flocking water separation devices as well as the settlers and clarifiers, all of which are currently on the market, cannot effectively recycle the flow-back wastewater because these water separators only remove hydrocarbons and settleable solids; they do not have the capability of treating and removing the totally dissolved salts (5 different salt groups) (TDS), totally dissolved chemicals (TSS), ultra-fine solids (2-4 microns), or iron concentrates.

Our patent pending Unitized Single-Pass System (USS™) is the only device that can meet and exceed the 80% removal requirement.  Our proprietary device can effectively and economically treat and recycle at well site the wastewater with a removal factor of 99% of all contaminants, i.e. hydrocarbons and all other suspended solids including ultra-fine solids, and totally dissolved salts, iron and most chemicals.

The bottom line is that our process will reduce the use of fresh water by 35% or more. This fresh water reduction is achieved by treating and recycling the flow-back water on-site and returning it back into the regular fracking water cycle in a continuous flow (up to 450 GPM flow rate).