Water planning strategies to accommodate uncertain development plans

Abstract

Water management and water re-use strategies play an important role in minimising the costs and risks associated with the development of an unconventional oil and gas field. At the same time, an effective water management strategy is essential to maintain a social license to operate and minimise the social and environmental impacts associated with development. Most companies, however, are forced to make water decisions based solely on the flexibility of a water management strategy that can accommodate changes in a development plan. In most situations, this is the most expensive option with the highest environmental and social risk. MWH Global has developed a streamlined water infrastructure modelling approach that gives users the ability to quickly visualise a variety of water management and water re-use strategies for different development plans. The user can quantitatively compare key outputs (such as costs, flexibility, probability of a traffic accident and CO2 emissions) for different potential scenarios. The modelling approach is applied to an integrated development plan to compare costs and other key outputs for several water management and water re-use strategies in a basin. The ability to quickly model water management and water re-use strategies for a variety of development plans reduces the time and cost required, while providing more accurate and flexible water management and water re-use strategies.