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Offshore drilling and U.S. public opinion: New research

2016 study published in Energy Policy that examines U.S. public opinions of offshore drilling based on 10 national polls, with a focus on the underlying factors that shape opinions.

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by Lauren Leatherby, The Journalist's Resource March 7, 2016

This <a target="_blank" href="https://journalistsresource.org/environment/offshore-drilling-oil-public-opinion/">article</a> first appeared on <a target="_blank" href="https://journalistsresource.org">The Journalist's Resource</a> and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.<img src="https://journalistsresource.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/cropped-jr-favicon-150x150.png" style="width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;">

The oil market in 2016 looks very different than it did even five years earlier. Oil prices dropped dramatically, and the United States, formerly a large oil importer, is now producing enough oil to be on the cusp of eliminating its net oil imports within the next decade. U.S. domestic crude oil production is up more than 80 percent since 2008. In 2014, the U.S. became the world’s top producer of petroleum and other liquid fuels , outpacing traditional petroleum giants Russia and Saudi Arabia, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration .

As the nation produces more of its own energy, some political and business groups have pressed to open up more areas in coastal waters to offshore drilling. While President Obama approved new oil and gas drilling off the nation’s coastline in 2010, he rescinded that decision after the BP oil spill , the largest marine oil spill in U.S. history . In early 2016, however, the Obama administration is expected to release a proposal that would allow oil and gas drilling in federal waters near Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia. While the governors of those states support the plan, Virginia’s lieutenant governor has voiced concern about how local tourism, commercial fisheries and military training could be affected. Meanwhile, several TV celebrities and dozens of coastal leaders spent a day in January 2016 lobbying against the change .

Two researchers sought to better understand how the U.S. public, as a whole, feels about offshore drilling. Deep Mukherjee and Mohammad Arshad Rahman , economics professors at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, analyzed the responses given during 10 nationwide surveys conducted by two reputable organizations between 2009 and 2012 — before, during and after the BP oil spill. Their April 2016 study, published in Energy Policy , looks at how various factors shape public opinion and influence an individual’s willingness to support or oppose offshore drilling. The study, “ To Drill or Not to Drill? An Econometric Analysis of U.S. Public Opinion, ” also considers how public opinion changes following a disaster such as the BP spill.

Among the study’s key findings:

  • Public support declined in the wake of the BP spill, but that reduction in support lasted only 18 months. Once that time period had passed, support for offshore drilling rose and was no longer significantly lower than the level of support had been before the oil spill,
  • Factors associated with support for drilling in U.S. waters include a larger household income, being an older age and living in an oil-rich state.
  • Those who oppose further offshore drilling are more likely to have a higher education, care more about the environment, and be female.
  • Republicans were more likely to support further offshore drilling while Democrats were more likely to oppose it.

Knowing the characteristics of both opponents and supporters of offshore drilling is helpful for policymakers who advocate either position. Studying the demographics of those who support and those who oppose offshore drilling can help policymakers be strategic about how they advocate certain policies regarding the environment and offshore drilling. “From a policy making perspective, it is not only crucial to determine the potential impact of energy related decisions on the economy, it is also necessary to recognize whether implementation of a set of strategies are welcome by the citizens in general,” the authors state.

Related research: In 2015, Journalist’s Resource compiled a collection of studies that analyzed the societal effects of gas prices, including effects on health, driving patterns, economics and policy. A 2013 study published in Energy Policy , “The Effect of the 2010 Gulf Oil Spill on Public Attitudes Toward Offshore Oil Drilling and Wind Development,” explores attitudes related to offshore energy. A 2010 paper from scholars at Brooklyn College and CUNY, “Lessons from the Twin Mega-Crises:  The Financial Meltdown and the BP Oil Spill,” looks at how future government policies may help avoid a similar crisis.

Keywords: BP oil spill, Deepwater Horizon, offshore drilling, oil development, fossil fuels, energy, oil extraction

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Lauren Leatherby

September 12, 2008

Can Offshore Drilling Really Make the U.S. Oil Independent?

Even if U.S. energy policy goes "drill baby drill," there will be no escape from the vicissitudes of the global oil market

By Emily Gertz

When Arizona Sen. John McCain accepted the Republican nomination for president, he vowed to cut America's reliance on foreign oil by opening up the nation's Atlantic and Pacific coasts to drilling—drawing cheers from GOP delegates on hand for his party's national convention. "We will drill new oil wells offshore, and we'll drill them now," McCain pledged to his faithful, who gushed with enthusiastic chants of "drill, baby, drill!" The ultimate goal, the candidate said: to "stop sending $700 billion a year (for oil) to countries that don't like us very much."

No one disputes that a lot of oil lies untapped under the rocky floors of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans off the U.S. coasts, in areas where Congress has banned drilling since 1982. But is it enough to free the U.S. from its dependence on foreign suppliers?

The Minerals Management Service (MMS), is the part of the U.S. Department of the Interior responsible for leasing tracts to oil and gas companies and collecting the royalties on them, which amount to around $8 billion a year. The leases are supposed to be awarded through a competitive bidding process, in which the best-qualified company coming in with the highest split of royalties wins. (The Interior Department 's inspector general, however, released a scathing report on September 10 charging that 19 current and past officials in the MMS's  Denver-based Royalty in Kind program were both literally and figuratively in bed with energy company execs . The IG report describes " a culture of ethical failure " in which staffers accepted vacations and other pricey gifts from oil companies, rigged contracts, did drugs with one another and had sex with industry reps.

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The MMS has estimated that there are around 18 billion barrels in the underwater areas now off-limits to drilling. That's significantly less than in oil fields open for business in the Gulf of Mexico, coastal Alaska and off the coast of southern California, where there are 10.1 billion barrels of known oil reserves as well as an estimated 85.9 billion more.

To put these numbers in perspective: one U.S. barrel of oil equals 42 gallons (159 liters) and, according to the Energy Information Administration (an arm of the U.S. Department of Energy that provides energy data and analysis), the U.S. consumes some 20.8 million barrels of oil a day—almost one quarter of the 87 million used worldwide . That adds up to 7.59 billion barrels a year.

The EIA estimates that by 2030, U.S. oil daily demand will climb to nearly 23 million barrels, with global per-day consumption expected to top 118 million.

But here's the catch: There is a chance that the MMS has miscalculated the amount of offshore oil, because its estimates are based on 30- to 40-year-old data. For example, MMS spokesperson Nicholas Pardi says a 1987 survey of the Gulf of Mexico indicated there was potentially nine billion barrels of oil there, but when the area was resurveyed nine years later (using newer technologies), the number jumped to potential 45 billion barrels.

In other words, says Ian Nathan, a senior research analyst with New York City–based Energy Intelligence Group (a publisher of data and information on the global energy industry), it is possible that areas currently off-limits to drilling might actually contain a lot more—or less, for that matter—petroleum than previously believed.

So why hasn't the info been updated? Gathering and analyzing this data is expensive: According to Lars Johan Frigstad, CEO of Oslo, Norway–based Scan Geophysical ASA, a seismic survey in the North Atlantic can cost $6 million or more a month and take one to four months or longer to gather (depending on the size of the area being surveyed).

And there's no incentive for oil companies—or the feds—to cough up the cash unless Congress lifts the ban, according to Harold Syms, chief of the MMS's Resource Evaluation Division. If the moratorium was lifted, the MMS would "evaluate the tracts...to be sure the public gets fair market value" for oil leases. He says the agency would issue a permit to an outside firm to do seismic surveys of designated areas, in return for giving all the resulting data to the MMS. The surveyors could also sell the information to private companies interested in bidding on the leases.

Oil companies would commission their own more precise seismic surveys after they were awarded leases, says Judy Penniman of the American Petroleum Institute, the industry's Washington, D.C.–based trade association, and test drill the most promising oil deposits.  If test drilling revealed recoverable oil reserves, she says that a company would have to plunk down another $2 billion for an oil rig. But even if Congress were to lift its 16-year ban on offshore drilling tomorrow, she agrees with the EIA that it would take at least five years before an oil company awarded a lease could pump its first drop of oil.

What's more, industry experts say no matter how much oil there may be offshore, only some of it will be "recoverable," that is, able to be removed at a cost that's cheap enough to guarantee oil companies enough profit on their investment. Current shortages of both oil rigs and skilled manpower to operate them could also bottleneck such efforts.

According to Phyllis Martin, a senior EIA energy analyst, Atlantic and Pacific oil fields tend to be smaller on average than those in the Gulf of Mexico, but it is just as costly to drill them, making the economics of drilling these areas especially tough to justify.

In fact, oil companies have yet to take advantage of the nearly 86 billion barrels of offshore oil in areas already available for leasing and development. So why are they chomping at the drill bit to open up the moratorium waters and survey them anew?

"Oil company stocks are valued in large part based on how much proved reserves they have," says Robert Kaufman, an expert on world oil markets and director of Boston University's Center for Energy and Environmental Studies. Translation: just having more promising leases in hand would be worth billions of dollars.

So are promises of U.S. oil independence real—or rhetoric? The issue is not whether the U.S. can significantly reduce its reliance on oil imports with domestic, offshore oil, say both Kaufman and Nathan, but whether there is enough that is recoverable to significantly lower the price of a barrel of oil on the global market.

Even by 2030, offshore drilling would not have a significant impact on oil prices, according to Martin, because oil prices are determined on the global market. "The amount of total production anticipated—around 200,000 barrels a day—would be less than 1 percent of the total projected international consumption."

And disruptions to the global supply affect the price of every barrel of oil the U.S. purchases, whether it be from Saudi Arabia, Venezuela or off the New Jersey coast. "Suppose the U.S. got all its oil domestically, and the price was $100 a barrel. Then the Saudi family was deposed," disrupting that country's oil exports, Kaufman says. "The Saudis produce about 10 million barrels a day of the world's 85 million, so clearly prices would go up, because now there is this big shortfall of oil."

"Do you think oil companies are going to sell [U.S. oil] to U.S. consumers for anything less than top price?," he asks. "The answer is no."

What if Congress mandated that the offshore oil could not be exported? "The question of how much of that product that comes out, where it goes, I don't think Congress can dictate," industry rep Penniman says. "It goes onto the market. It's a free market system…but it is up to Congress [to pass] the laws on what they will and won't open."

Such a move could in fact increase the nation's energy costs. "Any time you impose a constraint, like 'oil from Alaska cannot go to Japan,'" Kaufman notes, "you're saying, 'don't do the cheapest thing, do something more expensive.' So everybody pays a little more. Where the free market does work very efficiently is to minimize transportation costs" for oil—which are determined by many factors, including the location of the nearest refinery that can handle the particular characteristics of the crude oil being shipped.

Kaufman dismisses as "nonsense" any promises that offshore drilling could make the U.S. "oil independent." Even if it could somehow insulate itself from the ups and downs of the global oil market, he notes, the U.S. would have to make a huge leap in domestic oil production to replace what it buys from overseas.

"At its peak in production, which occurred in 1970s, the U.S. produced about 10 million [barrels of oil] a day," Kaufman says. "Now, after 30 years of fairly steady decline, we produce about five million barrels a day," whereas we consume 20 million barrels daily. "Whoever talks about oil independence has to tell a story about how we close a 15-million-barrel gap."

The McCain campaign did not return repeated calls seeking comment.

Offshore drilling has dug itself a deeper hole since Deepwater Horizon

Ten years after deepwater horizon, offshore drilling creeps farther away from shore.

By Justine Calma , a senior science reporter covering climate change, clean energy, and environmental justice with more than a decade of experience. She is also the host of Hell or High Water: When Disaster Hits Home, a podcast from Vox Media and Audible Originals.

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Ever since the first oil well was built in the Gulf of Mexico in 14 feet of water in 1938, technology advancements made it easier to move farther away from shore in pursuit of new oil reserves, at times without a plan for worst-case scenarios. Just one year before the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig became the site of the most devastating oil spill in American history, it succeeded in drilling what was the deepest oil and gas well ever at the time. The rig bored through more than 35,000 feet of ocean floor while working in waters more than 4,130 feet deep. 

Explosions rocked the rig on the evening of April 20th, 2010, after the ultra-deepwater semisubmersible rig Deepwater Horizon had just completed drilling another exploratory well. That night’s events killed 11 people, set loose 200 million gallons of oil that spewed out into the Gulf over the course of nearly three months, and harmed marine ecosystems and coastal economies for years. 

Since then, offshore drilling operations continued to creep farther out into ultra-deep waters — where depths reach 1,500 meters (about 5,000 feet) or more. Today’s drilling rigs can work at depths more than twice as deep as Deepwater Horizon. Between 2000 and 2009, just 15 percent of oil production from US waters in the Gulf of Mexico came from ultra-deep operations like Deepwater Horizon. That proportion grew to 52 percent by 2017 , and it likely won’t stop there. 

Drilling at new depths unlocks untapped oil reserves

Drilling at new depths unlocks untapped oil reserves and has become easier with newer technologies. But those opportunities come with greater dangers and less margin for error, experts tell The Verge . “The lesson from Deepwater Horizon is [that] at the same time that the technology for extraction was progressing very rapidly — I mean it’s quite amazing actually what they’ve been able to do — the technology for safety lagged,” says Donald Boesch, president emeritus of the University of Maryland’s Center for Environmental Science. 

Boesch was appointed by Barack Obama to the national oil spill commission that was put together to investigate the cause of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. He believes the US is marginally better prepared now than it was for the blowout in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, but there are new scenarios that pose even bigger risks — especially when drilling at extreme depths. 

Powerful forces

The Gulf of Mexico produced a record-breaking 2 million barrels of oil a day last year. Sustaining that output will require even more exploration, drilling, and development in deeper waters, Tyler Priest, an oil and energy historian at the University of Iowa, tells The Verge . And the average rate of production for a Gulf of Mexico oil well increases with its depth . 

“Nothing generates more free cash flow than a flowing deep water well.”

“Nothing generates more free cash flow than a flowing deep water well,” he says. “You have to keep finding more and more oil as older fields deplete and get plugged and abandoned.”

With higher opportunities for profit come higher stakes. Drilling at deeper depths means working under greater pressure. There’s the crushing weight of the water. And there’s also greater pressure within the oil and gas pockets. Not only are rigs able to work at greater depths, but they’re also able to dig deeper than they ever have. The deeper they dig, the more pressure and resistance they face. The temperature of the trapped oil and gas is hotter the farther down and closer to the Earth’s mantle they dig, too. The equipment needs to be able to withstand temperatures that can reach up to 180 degrees Celsius at about 40,000 feet underground. 

“You’re working against some very powerful forces,” Boesch tells The Verge . Gas that’s trapped along with the oil under the seafloor “is going to be wanting to expand very rapidly once the pressure is somewhat relieved [by drilling],” he explains. 

The probability of a serious accident, fatality, injury, explosion, or fire being reported grows by 8.5 percent with every additional 100 feet of depth at which an offshore platform operates, an analysis of oil and gas production in the Gulf of Mexico from 1996 to 2010 found. That’s regardless of the platform’s age or quantity of fossil fuels produced. 

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The challenges posed by drilling in deeper water can also complicate measures to cope with any problems that occur. “When something does go wrong, like it did [with Deepwater Horizon], it makes it that much harder to control and clean up,” says Sierra Weaver, senior attorney with the nonprofit Southern Environmental Law Center. “We were really conducting experiments in the very deep ocean in terms of how you drill, how you control, and how you clean up oil,” she tells The Verge .

When it comes to how “safe” the Gulf Coast is from a similar event today, “Who knows? You’re really only as safe as you are today,” Priest tells The Verge . “All it takes is some series of misfortunes.”

In Deep Trouble

In the evening April 20th, 2010, a series of misfortunes began to unfold after the crew aboard Deepwater Horizon installed a cement seal to the Macondo exploration well 66 miles off the coast of Louisiana. The seal meant to hold back oil and gas failed and so did two valves that were supposed to prevent the flood of oil and gas from traveling up the pipe to the surface. 

The crew then misread pressure tests that should have told them that the well wasn’t properly sealed. They were caught off guard when drilling mud and natural gas began flowing out of the pipe and onto the rig. Once spotted, they tried to close the valves of a “blowout preventer,” a device that should have stopped the uncontrolled release of oil and gas. That failed, too. Within eight minutes of the crew seeing the leak, the natural gas sparked a massive explosion and fires that would eventually bring down the rig.

When it sank, the rig ruptured the pipe that traveled between it and well below, which had been filled with drilling mud to counteract the pressure driving oil and gas upward from the Earth. Without that counter-pressure, oil flowed from the well into the Gulf for 87 days. Several attempts at stopping the leak failed, including trying to fit a containment dome over the well that eventually filled with frozen methane and nearly floated to the surface. Finally, on July 15th, a newly developed device — called a capping stack — was able to seal off the well. 

Deepwater Horizon exposed how unprepared the industry was

The failures at Deepwater Horizon exposed how unprepared the industry was to respond to such a catastrophic event. Today, capping stacks are kept onshore, ready to be deployed for another well blowout. They can weigh up to 100 tons and are built to withstand the high pressure coming from a blown-out well. The stack connects to the blowout preventer, adding additional valves that can be closed to slow and stop the flow of oil until the well can be permanently sealed. 

“Now we’re prepared for the last war, you know, if the scenario is exactly like before,” says Steven Murawski, lead editor of the 2019 book Scenarios and Responses to Future Deep Oil Spills . “I don’t think we’re going to see another 87-day blowout like Deepwater Horizon,” he tells The Verge . 

The Next War

There are other, potentially worse scenarios that Murawski and Boesch worry about, like a pipe fracturing below the seafloor instead of in the water as it did during the Deepwater Horizon crisis. If there were to be a leak below the seafloor, the oil would dissipate into the rock formation surrounding it and escape wherever it can find cracks in the rock. “That would be a doomsday scenario because there’s no way you can shut it off,” says Murawski. You couldn’t simply plop a capping stack over a leaking pipe. The best option currently available would be to dig another well to relieve the pressure within the rock formation and redirect flow. This was done after Deepwater Horizon capsized — but drilling the well takes precious time as the damage of the leak grows with each minute. BP began drilling two relief wells in May, but oil continued to gush from the leak until the capping stack was added in July.  

“That would be a doomsday scenario.”

“There was obviously a gap in being able to deploy the resources to shut the well in during that incident,” says Erik Milito president of the National Ocean Industries Association, an industry group for offshore drilling and wind power. Since then, according to Milito, new safety equipment to prevent spills, more capacity to respond to problems, and greater government oversight has led to safer operations. 

Others aren’t convinced. “The oil industry has been saying that for as long as they’ve been in existence. Before the Deepwater Horizon happened, that type of accident could never happen. And then after it happened, it was, ‘well this will never happen again.’ And that’s simply not the case,” Weaver says.  

She and Boesch point to the Trump administration’s efforts to simultaneously ramp up US fossil fuel production, including a bid to open up more shores to offshore drilling that’s currently tied up in courts, while rolling back environmental protections. After Boesch’s oil spill commission made recommendations to prevent another Deepwater Horizon-like spill, the Obama administration introduced well control rules in 2016 that created new industry standards. Then, in May of last year, the Trump administration weakened those rules ; changing about 20 percent of the original provisions deemed “unnecessary regulatory burdens.”  

read the thesis statement about offshore drilling for oil

The COVID-19 pandemic has implications for offshore drilling, too, as oil prices and demand plummet amid a nearly global shutdown of business as usual. Boesch worries because he’s seen what effect tightened purse strings had on BP’s Deepwater Horizon operation. “They started to cut corners and make hasty decisions,” he says. “That’s my concern about how [the pandemic] plays into safety.” BP was found guilty of “gross negligence” leading to the Deepwater Horizon disaster by a Louisiana federal court in 2014.

“The Deepwater Horizon accident forever changed BP,” the company, which leased the rig, said in a statement. The catastrophe cost BP $65 billion.

Even though offshore drilling is moving further into uncharted territory, 10 years after Deepwater Horizon, its effects still reach the shore. “That oil didn’t know it was supposed to stay offshore, it came right to those communities,” says Weaver. Oil from the spill eventually washed up along 1,300 miles of coastline reaching from Texas to Florida. Tens of thousands of animals perished in the aftermath. And even more people and wildlife were exposed to the lingering toxic effects of the spill. That still wasn’t enough of a wake-up call for oil companies like BP to pull back. A decade later, the risks of deepwater oil exploration continue to loom just over the horizon.

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read the thesis statement about offshore drilling for oil

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Oceana USA

The Problem with Offshore Drilling

We cannot drill our way to energy independence. Energy security can only be achieved by eliminating the stranglehold oil and gas companies have on our elected officials.

Oil and gas companies already hold leases to nearly 68 million acres of federal land and waters that are not currently producing oil and gas. In fact, according to the Department of the Interior, of all the oil and gas believed to exist on the Outer Continental Shelf, 82% of the natural gas and 79% of the oil is located in areas that are currently open for leasing.

Expanding offshore drilling will not significantly decrease prices at the pump. Even once full production is achieved (not before 2030), new offshore drilling will have a negligible effect on oil prices, according to the government’s Energy Information Administration.

Clean oceans and beaches are extremely valuable both culturally and economically. Tourism in America is a trillion-dollar industry with coastal communities contributing over $700 billion annually to our economy.

Alternatives to oil exist. For example, shifting to a fleet of plug-in and electric vehicles will greatly reduce the need for oil and will also allow our cars to be powered by clean energy, such as wind power. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimates that offshore wind in U.S. waters could generate more than the current total installed electric capacity.

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Produced water from the oil and gas industry as a resource—south kuwait as a case study.

read the thesis statement about offshore drilling for oil

1. Introduction

2. characteristics of pw from south kuwaiti oilfields and possible treatment methods for pw, 3. waste reclamation from oilfield pw, optimum utilization of pw and potential economic gains.

  • All PW, separated from oil and gas, is gathered at one large gathering center for storage in the form of mega tanks.
  • The distance between the large gathering center water storage tanks and the proposed site for the facility is 1 km. The chosen distance is similar to that in the plant design of the SK oilfield).
  • PW is transferred entirely through pipelines.
  • Pipelines are made from carbon steel.
  • Water treatment, facility maintenance, facility operations, electricity, and disposal operations are included in the model operational cost.
  • Water treatment costs include chemical additives and filtration costs.
  • Pipelines and trucks are included in the model transportation cost, where the lease value of the trucks is embedded.
  • Reinjection operations include all the costs associated with treatment operations, including chemical additives and filtration costs (for scenarios 1 and 3)
  • Fifty percent of the treated water is sent to reinjection wells by pipeline and the rest is sold as treated water at the tipping value (scenario 3)
  • There is a 15-percent oil production increase in the oilfield after water injection.
  • The water cut in the produced liquid increases by 3 percent every year over the next 5 years. This estimate is based on the witnessed trend of an annual increase in the water cut in the SK oilfield [ 22 ]. Only 50 percent of the PW is to be reinjected (see also point 9).
  • The oil output is steady after the initial increase.
  • The new facility is an expansion to the current water management system.
  • Treated water transportation costs by pipeline are USD 0.50 per barrel [ 58 ]. The costs of water transportation include all shipping of treated PW within the oilfield facilities up to the border of the oilfield area.
  • The cost of injection for one barrel of water is USD 1–3 [ 59 ] (scenarios 1 and 3).
  • We assume that no more disposal wells need to be drilled in the next 5 years.
  • The treated-water tipping fee is constant throughout the 5-year period (scenarios 2 and 3).
  • The cost of water transportation outside the oilfield is handled by the government authorities (scenarios 2 and 3).

4. Materials and Methods

5. results and discussion, expected impact of enhanced oil-recovery operations on kuwait’s economy, 6. conclusions and recommendations, supplementary materials, author contributions, data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

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Click here to enlarge figure

ComponentsKuwait Produced Water
Raw Sample 1 (mg/L)
Kuwait Produced Water
Raw Sample 2 (mg/L)
<5 306
1195
1036
132,780193,350
3N/A*
6.886.02
35,60051,500
15201800
767011,200
17303050
2.32.4
255460
1.36N/D**
0.44<0.01
75,660110,090
18355
140300
12.3N/D**
AbbreviationDescription
TC (n) with n = 0–3Total Production Costs for scenarios 0–3
VC (n) with n = 0–3Variable Costs for scenarios 0–3
XNumber of Units
FC (n) with n = 0–3Fixed Costs for scenarios 0–3
TR (n) with n = 0–3Total Revenue for scenarios 0–3
NO (n) with n = 0–3Net outcome for scenarios 0–3
OSROil Sales Revenue under the current scenario
SSRSalt Sales Revenue
WSRWater Sales Revenue
IRRInternal Rate of Return
Future Value
Present Value
Future Sale Value of Treated Water
PWTProduced Water Treatment
Present Treatment Cost
Present Extraction Cost
Future Sale Value of Gained Barrels of Oil
APIAmerican Petroleum Institute
IRRInternal rate of return
PWIProduced Water Injection
ItemSales Value (USD) per Unit
Sodium chloride (industrial salt)260/ton [ ]
Chlorine250/ton [ ]
Hydrogen7220/ton [ ]
Purified PW0.79/barrel * [ ]
Recovered crude oil65.73/barrel *
Calcium carbonate50–350/ton [ ]
Process or ItemCost per Unit (USD)
Disposal well operational costs (a)0.5/barrel * [ ]
Disposal well operational costs (b)2.5/barrel * [ ]
Cost of gravity-based oil–water separation0.08/barrel * [ ]
Disposal well construction cost100/barrel *
Ceramic membrane treatment cost0.51/barrel * [ ]
Cost of ceramic membrane-treatment facility 48.543/barrel * [ ]
EOR water injection costs (a)1/barrel * [ ]
EOR water injection costs (b)3/barrel * [ ]
Walnut-shell filtration system cost23.256/barrel * [ ]
Walnut-shell filtration operational cost0.003/barrel * [ ]
Carbon dioxide purchases215/ton [ ]
33w% aq. Hydrochloric acid purchases89/ton [ ]
Solar distillation cost (a)1.113/barrel * [ ]
Solar distillation cost (b)5.4/barrel * [ ]
Sodium carbonate purchases200/ton [ ]
Sodium hydroxide purchases260/ton [ ]
Sodium hydroxide production costs1.4/ton [ ]
CharacteristicsWafra Eocene Crude [ ]SK Oilfield Recovered oil Minagish Oilfield
[ ]
API gravity18.5°16.02°28° to 33.4°
Sulfur content3.32%5.42%2.6%
5-year average selling price (USD)69.05 *65.73 **69.20
Classification of oils according to API. Light oil: higher than 31.1° API, medium oil: 31.1–22.3° API, heavy oil: less than 22.3° [ ]
ScenarioMinimum Net Outcome (USD)Maximum Net Outcome (USD)
Scenario 2-I129,000,000616,000,000
Scenario 2-II−243,000,000−730,000,000
Scenario 2-III−95,000,000−583,000,000
Methane (CH )65.0%Propane (C H )5.0%CO 12.0%H O1.0%
Ethane (C H )10.0%Butane (C H )2.5%H S4.0%N 0.5%
ScenarioCost (USD)Revenue (USD)Net Outcome (USD)
2-I864,000,000677,000,000−186,000,000
2-II1,201,000,000771,000,000−429,000,000
2-III1,053,000,000771,000,000−282,000,000
Scenario 0Scenario 1Scenario 2-IScenario 2-IIScenario 2-III
FC + VCFC + VCFC + VCFC + VCFC + VC
332,000,000665,000,000864,000,0001,200,000,0001,053,000,000
01,200,000,000677,000,000772,000,000772,000,000
−332,000,000534,000,000−187,000,000−428,000,000−281,000,000
Scenario 1 with Regulatory Changes with Regard to the Use of Disposal Wells
YearInitial Fixed Cost (USD)Operational Cost (a)Operational Cost (b)Median Total CostExpected RevenueAnnual Outcome IRR
1178,000,0001,367,000,0001,825,000,0001,775,000,0001,200,000,000−576,000,000−32.42
201,410,00,0001,880,000,0001,645,000,0001,236,000,000−409,000,000−24.88
301,452,000,0001,936,000,0001,694,000,0001,273,000,000−421,000,000−24.88
401,496,000,0001,994,000,0001,745,000,0001,311,000,000−434,000,000−24.88
501,541,000,0002,054,000,0001,797,000,0001,350,000,000−447,000,000−24.88
Total178,000,0007,267,000,0009,689,000,0008,656,000,0006,369,000,000−2,288,000,000−26.43
Net Outcome
−2,288,000,000
Scenario 0-(B)Scenario 2-I
FC + VCFC + VC
1,489,000,000864,000,000
0677,000,000
−1,489,000,000−187,000,000
Proposed Hybrid Process (Lower Injection Costs)
YearInitial Fixed Cost (USD) Operational Costs 3aExpected RevenueAnnual Outcome IRR
146,000,000680,000,000938,000,000112,000,00013.60%
0700,000,000966,000,000266,000,00038.00%
0721,000,000995,000,000274,000,00038.00%
0743,000,0001,025,000,000282,000,00038.00%
0765,000,0001,056,000,000291,000,00038.00%
146,000,000 1,226,000,000
Proposed Hybrid Process (Higher Injection and Distillation Costs and Product Sale Value)
YearInitial Fixed Cost (USD)Operational Costs 3bExpected RevenueAnnual Outcome IRR
146,000,0001,827,000,0001,201,000,000−773,000,000−39.15%
01,882,000,0001,237,000,000−645,000,000−34.29%
01,938,000,0001,274,000,000−665,000,000−34.29%
01,997,000,0001,312,000,000−685,000,000−34.29%
02,057,000,0001,351,000,000−705,000,000−34.29%
146,000,0009,701,000,0006,375,000,000−3,472,000,000
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Alsalem, F.; Thiemann, T. Produced Water from the Oil and Gas Industry as a Resource—South Kuwait as a Case Study. Resources 2024 , 13 , 118. https://doi.org/10.3390/resources13090118

Alsalem F, Thiemann T. Produced Water from the Oil and Gas Industry as a Resource—South Kuwait as a Case Study. Resources . 2024; 13(9):118. https://doi.org/10.3390/resources13090118

Alsalem, Feras, and Thies Thiemann. 2024. "Produced Water from the Oil and Gas Industry as a Resource—South Kuwait as a Case Study" Resources 13, no. 9: 118. https://doi.org/10.3390/resources13090118

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