And we saw six very interesting travelers along the way.It doesn't get any better than that!We moved our gear into the cabin and got a nice fire going. Dinner was quick and easy, and, as we sit in this warm little cabin, writing in our diaries, we can hear the wind howling outside.I can't imagine any place I would rather be than right here!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'panies under SG's coverage, including large independents such as Anadarko Petroleum Corp., Apache Corp., ConocoPhillips, Devon Energy Corp., Encana Corp. and EOG Resources Inc.For the majority of E&Ps developing North American gas and oil in shale and tight sands, water is a necessity in the fracking process.
In remote areas with little or no water infrastructure, the lack of water has b'e a real problem.According to SG, a typical unconventional natural gas or oil well requires about 5 million gallons of water to drill and frack, depending on the geology. Assuming 5,000 new wells are drilled every year,Asked what it would take to get Congress to upd water demand could require almost 25 billion gallons, which'es out at less than 0.02% of total water use in the United States.
"However, water is a local issue, and seasonal and regional variations are causing economic and environmental stress," the analysts said."For example, in California Monterey, North Dakota's Bakken play and in Colorado's Denver Julesburg Basin Niobrara most of the hydraulic wells are concentrated in three or fewer counties," which means more water is drawn in smaller areas."The drive to increase efficiencies is high as industry demand for water grows with the development of more wells...Management of water at every stage of drilling and'pletion is an increasingly core risk management issue for a'pany."