Since the start of the Shale Revolution, water use in the Permian has skyrocketed, rising six-fold in ten short years. Today, fracking the average Permian Basin well requires between 500,000 and 700,000 barrels of water, which equates to over 21 million gallons per well. As operators continue to fine-tune their drilling and completion techniques, the amount of water per well is expected to climb. Water demand is forecast to reach the 100 billion gallons a day mark by 2020. Black Mountain Permian mines are designed to maximize water usage throughout the frac sand manufacturing process. Two 1-million-gallon freshwater holding tanks feed the system in a closed-loop to wash and sort sand, which results in a continual source of used turbid water. Instead of routing the used, turbid water into settling ponds, the system captures it in a settling tank where solids are concentrated into a mud containing anywhere from 25 to 35 percent solids. Next, this mud is pumped at high pressures into filter press membranes where filter press technology squeezes water out of the solids. Thus, instead of losing water to evaporation and ground seepage, a system feeds this recovered water back into the holding tanks to be used again and again. In addition, the wet sand is stored in a specially-designed decant building while awaiting final processing in the dryers. This step helps prevent water evaporation while promoting efficient draining; as water drains from the sand, that water is funneled through a drainage system in the floor directly back into the holding tanks. And, by promoting better drainage before the drying process, Black Mountain saves energy because the sand requires less energy to be dried. All told, Black Mountain Sand recycles and reuses up to 98% of the water used in their operations, helping them meet the high-quality frac sand needs of customers with as minimal stress on the local water system as possible.

Click Here For Complete Article Text

• Black Mountain

• Dryers

• Filter Press

• Water

• Article