US 8,616,279 B2Granted

Water treatment following shale oil production by in situ heating

AssigneeExxonMobil Upstream Research Company

InventorsWilliam A. Symington, Piyush S. Shah, John D Miller, Jesse D Yeakel, Ganesh L Ghurye

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Abstract

A method for treating water at a water treatment facility is provided. In one aspect, the water has been circulated through a subsurface formation in a shale oil development area. The subsurface formation may comprise shale that has been spent due to pyrolysis of formation hydrocarbons. The method in one embodiment includes receiving the water at the water treatment facility, and treating the water at the water treatment facility in order to (i) substantially separate oil from the water, (ii) substantially remove organic materials from the water, (iii) substantially reduce hardness and alkalinity of the water, (iv) substantially remove dissolved inorganic solids from the water, and/or (v) substantially remove suspended solids from the water. The method may further includes delivering the water that has been treated at the water treatment facility re-injecting the treated water into the subsurface formation to continue leaching out contaminants from the spent shale.

Claims29

Dependent claims

A method for recovering hydrocarbons from a subsurface formation in a development area, comprising:

applying heat to the subsurface formation using in situ heat in order to pyrolyze formation hydrocarbons into hydrocarbon fluids;
producing the hydrocarbon fluids from one or more hydrocarbon production wells;
pumping water from an injection pump into one or more water injection wells;
circulating the water from the one or more water injection wells through the subsurface formation, into one or more water production wells, and up to a water treatment facility at the surface of the development area;
treating the water at the water treatment facility in order to (i) substantially separate hydrocarbons from the water, and wherein the water treatment facility is also configured to (ii) substantially remove organic materials from the water;
determining a pore volume of a portion of the subsurface formation through which the treated water is circulated;
and
circulating the treated water from an injection pump through the subsurface formation over time in a volume that represents about 2 to 6 times the determined pore volume.

5 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.