Recycling

Although commodity prices have depressed oil and natural gas activity across the shales, Keller, TX-based Fountain Quail Water Management LLC was recently able to secure a commitment for up to $40 million of private equity financing to expand North American operations.

A membrane-based filtration system being developed by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin (UT) could improve the efficiency of mobile water recycling systems used in conjunction with hydraulic fracturing (fracking) activities.

Initial tests of a process used in the Bakken Shale in North Dakota indicate that up to 80% of the water used in hydraulic fracturing (fracking) may be recycled successfully, according to the state’s chief oil and natural gas official.

To reduce the amount of drilling waste that has to be transported to landfills and to provide a renewable solution, Chesapeake Energy Corp. has begun an innovative recycling project with TWMA Ltd. in the Eagle Ford Shale.

North America’s largest recycling/waste management natural gas-powered fleet cleaned up it act just a little more Friday with the opening of a new compressed natural gas (CNG) fueling station in the Houston area at Conroe, TX. Waste Management said it now has five CNG-fueled collection vehicles in the Houston area, and will have an additional 35 CNG-powered vehicles by the end of this year. A public station, the Conroe fueling facility, will service Waste Management’s local fleet and sell CNG to commercial fleet operators. Waste Management operates more than 1,400 CNG vehicles, the largest fleet in North America, and a spokesperson said that for every Class 8 diesel truck the company replaces with CNG, diesel use is replaced by an average of 8,000 gallons annually, which cuts annual greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 22 metric tons. The self-service “Clean N’ Green station was built by California-based Clean Energy Fuels Corp.

A nonprofit organization that conducts voluntary reviews of state oil and natural gas regulations has made a few minor recommendations for Colorado’s hydraulic fracturing (fracking) regulations, but concluded that the program is well managed and contains some strengths the shale gas industry would find noteworthy.

A new system for treating shale well flowback water at or near the source was introduced Tuesday near Fort Worth, TX, by Fountain Quail Water Management, a unit of Calgary-based Aqua-Pure Ventures Inc.

The Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC) has suspended 41 water withdrawals in Pennsylvania as of Monday afternoon because of low-flowing streams in the central part of the state, forcing many natural gas driller to stop taking water from certain local waterways.

Removing a moratorium on new drilling in Pennsylvania state forests is not a priority, the acting secretary of the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) told a state Senate committee during confirmation hearings earlier this month.