Los Angeles – November 5, 2015 – OriginClear Inc. (OTC/QB: OOIL), a leading provider of water treatment solutions, today announced OriginClear’s proprietary electro-oxidation technology effectively removes 96 percent of bacteria and 97 percent of hydrogen sulfide (H2S) from produced water, without chemicals. Results were reported after lab and field testing on produced water from the Eagle Ford shale using OriginClear’s new Electro-Oxidation (EO) Toolkit.
Cost and water scarcity are driving operators to reinject produced and frack flowback water into wells. If this water goes untreated, bacteria can grow and can create health and safety issues. It can also generate H2S that “sours” well formations. Crude oil can lose 10 percent of its value if it sours.
“We’ve found that certain components of our multi-stage EWS process can address specific water treatment requirements out on the oilfield,” said Lee Portillo, OriginClear’s VP of Engineering. “In this case, we used our final electro-oxidation stage to target bacteria and hydrogen sulfide reduction in produced water.
“This is normally a chemically-intensive process and we achieved a significant elimination of contaminants without any chemicals. We believe our technology offers a pathway for reducing the cost of treating produced water.”
“I believe OriginClear’s recent results in treating produced water for bacteria and hydrogen sulfide are a significant step in cost reduction,” said R. Gerald Bailey PhD, CEO of MCW Energy Group and former President of Exxon for the Arabian Gulf. “The effect of bacteria and hydrogen sulfide has long been an expensive nuisance in oil field operations. They have been costly to remove and it has caused severe loss of revenue by reduced production. The OriginClear Toolkit technology is a welcome improvement.”
OriginClear’s Electro-Oxidation (EO) Toolkit is available for licensing and to end-users interested in showcase applications. Inquiries should be made at www.originclear.com/contact.
According to research paper Controlling Bacteria in Recycled Production Water for Completion and Workover Operations, “Reusing flowback water and produced water from active wells becomes more and more important… to keep surface water disposal costs… to a minimum… However, reusing untreated produced and flowback water… can promote bacteria growth both above and below ground…[and] will not only lead to Health and Safety (H&S) concerns due to increased sour gas or hydrogen sulfide (H2S) production but also to a slow souring of the formation.”