Oil & Gas

Gas Production

With the advent of new horizontal gas drilling, such as fracking, wells are drilled horizontally into shale formations containing natural gas. The wells are then fractured, using as much as five million gallons of water per well, releasing the gas for collection at the surface.

A key argument levelled against the use of fracking is the chemical composition of the water after the process is complete. Wastewater from fracking wells needs to be captured, reused or disposed of and traditional disinfection techniques using chemicals can be expensive and hazardous to employees. Operators are increasingly turning to ultraviolet light as a safer and lower-cost method of treating wastewater.

Oil Production

Water is also used in significant volumes in the onshore and offshore oil drilling industries. Large volumes of water may be injected into a well to displace oil and force it to the surface – this is called downhole injection water. Water may be treated with ultraviolet light before injection for microbial control, aiming to prevent biofouling of the pipelines as well as corrosion and obstructions caused by bacteria growth.

Prior to the adoption of UV in disinfection systems, downhole injection water was treated using a variety of chemicals, however, maintenance engineers found that different chemicals can have unwanted effects on the oil composition or react with each other, limiting their effectiveness.

Benefits of using UV technology are:

• Lower cost method of treating large volumes of water.
• Safer to use than using chemical additive systems.
• UV light renders microbes and pathogens harmless by altering their DNA.
• More environmentally friendly than chemical-based systems.

Alpha-Purify supplies UV lamps and accessories for all types of disinfection systems. Contact Us to find out how we can help.