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I had the opportunity to speak at the Canadian Shale Water Recycling and Reuse Congress last week in Calgary where I shared Imaginea’s plan to stop using freshwater for any operations by the second part of 2016. Like the majority of producers in central Alberta we produce a lot of saline water in our operations. This produced water should be the obvious source of water for all our operational needs. In 2009 it took our industry on average 0.14 bbls of water to produce a barrel of oil. By 2013 this had increased to 0.20 bbl and is continuing to grow. Based on the nature of oil to water that we produce, we are a water producer. We take and sell the oil and gas, but really we are in the business of producing water. So it is quite clear that our industry needs to invest and learn how to cost effectively process produced water so that it can be used to satisfy all our production needs without using any additional freshwater. This is an obvious choice as our use of fresh water results in permanent withdrawal of fresh water from the hydrologic cycle, removing it forever. At Imaginea we realized that if we could even use a portion of the water we produce to further our hydrocarbon production then it would mean we would use less to no freshwater which today comes from an irrigation canal that was put in place to supply water for agriculture and livestock. By figuring out how to cost effectively use processed water we will gain a highly reliable source of water at a predictable cost in addition to increasing social acceptance for our industry.<br><br>If you have any questions about my presentation or our initiatives please let me know.
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