PDO seeks takers for huge volumes of treated produced water

MUSCAT, AUG 11

Petroleum Development Oman (PDO), the country’s biggest producer of oil and gas, is canvassing the market for potential investment interest in the utilisation of the massive volumes of ‘produced water’ that it generates daily as part of its oilfield operations.

A byproduct of oil and gas production, produced water is naturally occurring water found in hydrocarbon reservoirs that is produced along with oil and gas when a well is under production. If suitably treated, this produced water has been reused in a number of applications, including desert greening, desert agriculture farming, biomass production, extraction of valuable minerals and other usages.

PDO currently produces a staggering 1 million m3/day of produced water, nearly three-fourths of which is reused for a number of oilfield activities, including reservoir pressure maintenance, chemical EOR processed and reed bed treatment. The rest is disposed of in deep reservoirs, which is an energy-intensive process.

Over the weekend, PDO issued a Request for Information (RFI) seeking market interest in treated produced water that the majority state-owned energy company is offering to make available from its sprawling Block 6 concession.

Treated produced water ranging from 45,000 – 100,000 m3/day is proposed to be made available from a water treatment plant within the concession, said PDO. It noted that the treated water is “clean” (with less than 0.5mg of oil per litre), but remains slightly brackish with total dissolved solids of up to 10,000 ppm.

Importantly, the underlying objective of the RFI is to elicit effective “solutions and strategies” for the utilization of the water in projects that “could offset the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions directly linked to PDO operations and generate value to the country”, said PDO.

The company also pledged to allocate a plot of up to 10,000 hectares within its concession to support this initiative.

“The criteria to evaluate market solutions will consider the following key drivers: Maximum GHG emissions reduction; Maximum water utilization; Maximum value generation; and Accelerated Schedule and Simplicity,” said PDO in its RFI.

The Request for Information invites interested parties to conceptualise their proposals, provide an estimate of the cost of the proposed solution, quantify the anticipated GHG offset in tonnes of CO2-equivalent per year, elaborate on the value generated by the solution, and provide an insight on the proposed mode of investment in the project. Interested parties have until September 1, 2023 to respond to the RFI.

Earlier this year, PDO launched a new water treatment plant at Rima at a cost of RO 87 million in the south of its concession. The facility, designed to support the environment-friendly treatment and disposal of 60,000 m3/day of oily wastewater, will contribute to a 10-gigawatt reduction in energy consumption.

A consortium led by French water and waste utility SUEZ, together with partners Merit National Investments (LLC) and Al-Shawamikh Oil Services (SAOG), secured a Design Build Own Operate and Maintain (DBOOM) contract to oversee the project.