Hydrogeology Group, Faculty of Engineering, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City, 04510, Mexico; Bureau of Economic Geology, Jackson School of Geosciences, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78758, USA.
Bureau of Economic Geology, Jackson School of Geosciences, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78758, USA.
J Environ Manage. 2019 Apr 15;236:146-162. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2018.11.123. Epub 2019 Feb 3.
Hydraulic fracturing (HF) operations have transformed the unconventional energy industry, leading to a global increase in hydrocarbon production. Despite this, only the US, China, Canada and Argentina currently dominate production of unconventional resources, with the majority of shale basins globally remaining unprofitable to develop. An important gap in current water-energy nexus research, which this study addresses, is the assessment of potential water use to satisfy HF procedures in emergent plays. This work presents a screening tool for assessing first-order estimates of water impacts in undeveloped shale plays, testing the approach in the transboundary Eagle Ford (EF) play in northeast Mexico. We couple surface water and groundwater stress indicators derived from global hydrological variables to depict a baseline water stress index. Relative water stress is mapped for proposed blocks to be leased by the Mexican government in the future. We simulate four HF scenarios to assess new total water stress indicators for each block, considering shale production schemes using representative well drilling density (well lateral length(s) per unit area) and HF water intensity (HF water volume per unit lateral length) from existing EF development in Texas. Results suggest that the most feasible management scenario would consider the drilling of ∼1360 new unconventional wells/yr with projected HF water use of ∼57 Mm/yr (0.7% of the total water withdrawals). The remaining scenarios will largely affect groundwater resources. Though applied to the EF in Mexico, this screening tool can assess water use constraints in emerging unconventional plays globally.
水力压裂（HF）作业改变了非常规能源行业，导致全球碳氢化合物产量增加。尽管如此，目前只有美国、中国、加拿大和阿根廷主导着非常规资源的生产，全球大多数页岩盆地的开发仍然无利可图。本研究旨在解决当前水-能源关系研究中的一个重要空白，即评估新兴领域 HF 作业潜在用水量。本工作提出了一种评估未开发页岩领域水影响的初步估算筛选工具，并在墨西哥东北部的跨境鹰福特（EF）领域进行了测试。我们结合来自全球水文变量的地表水和地下水压力指标，描绘了一个基线水压力指数。针对墨西哥政府未来计划出租的区块，绘制了相对水压力图。我们模拟了四种 HF 情景，以评估每个区块的新总水压力指标，考虑了使用代表 EF 在德克萨斯州现有开发中的钻井密度（单位面积的井侧长度）和 HF 水强度（单位侧长的 HF 水量）的页岩生产方案。结果表明，最可行的管理方案将考虑每年钻探约 1360 口新的非常规井，并预计 HF 用水量约为 5700 万立方米/年（占总取水量的 0.7%）。其余方案将主要影响地下水资源。尽管该筛选工具应用于墨西哥的 EF，但它可以评估全球新兴非常规领域的用水限制。
