Oil, water mix well in Wellington

By Cherry Sokoloski
North Forty News

When Richard Seaworth was a boy, he often rode his bike from the family farm north of Wellington to the nearby oil field, a fascinating place for a young, curious mind. One piece of information gleaned from oil workers especially impressed him. They were standing on "oceans of water," one old-timer told him, if a person wanted to go down 4,000 feet.

That knowledge has recently come in handy. Seaworth, who now farms 600 acres near his boyhood home, and oil man Brad Pomeroy, president of Wellington Operating Co., are working together on a pioneering project: taking water from the depths of the earth and putting it to beneficial use.

Before the water can be used, however, it has to be separated from the oil. Seaworth and Pomeroy, operating as Wellington Water Works or 3W, are just finishing a $1.4 million water purification plant that removes the final traces of oil from water produced in the Wellington Oil Field. This will create a new source of water, as well as making oil production more efficient. The project is expensive, both men pointed out, and only feasible because of the current high price of both oil and water.

The next step is approval from the state water court, where the partners have two filings pending. At press time, the court had received two statements of opposition.

The oil/water partnership, six years in the making, is a big win-win for Seaworth and Pomeroy. Seaworth needs water for a clustered housing development on his land. For Pomeroy, who operates the Wellington Oil Field, all the water that comes up with the oil is a liability and has to be pumped back into the earth. To clean some of that water and put it to beneficial use will get rid of a major bottleneck in his operation.

"The water cripples my ability to expand," Pomeroy said.

The water problem has plagued the Wellington Oil Field since the 1980s, Pomeroy noted. As oil reservoirs age, they produce less oil and more water --a lot more water. For each barrel of fluid produced at the Wellington field, only 1.5 percent is oil. The Wellington field currently produces about 50 barrels of oil a day, out of 3,000 barrels of fluid.

While water is like gold to farmers and developers, it's an expensive nuisance to the oil industry. Pomeroy must first separate the water from the oil, then reinject it about 5,000 feet below the surface. With the technology used up to this point, some oil was always lost in the process since it remained mixed with the water.

With the 3W project, Pomeroy will be able to expand production in the Wellington field. Of 35 cased wells at the site, he now uses just 16 for oil production, with three dedicated to reinjecting water into the earth. With the bottleneck gone, he plans to gradually put more oil wells online.

For his part, Seaworth plans to use the new water to irrigate his farmland. That will free up well water for domestic use - including the 60-home development he wants to build. The remainder could be sold to small municipalities in the area.

Wellington is currently involved in negotiations to possibly buy some of the water.

Wide interest shown

With both oil and water in demand, people in other oil-producing states and foreign countries are watching 3W's progress with interest. The partners hope that once the Wellington project is up and running, they can look at using their new technology elsewhere in Colorado and in other Western states. Patents are pending on the new water purification filters and processes developed for 3W.

The project will be featured at a symposium on produced water, to be held in Fort Collins in April.

The engineer who invented the new technology, David Stewart, is an adjunct faculty member at Colorado State University and president of Stewart Environmental Consultants Inc. He plans to become a partner in the 3W enterprise. Seaworth's neighbors, the Wagner family, are also involved with the company.

A new purification plant, located along County Road 70 next to Seaworth's property, will remove the final traces of oil and any other contaminants from the water produced in the Wellington oil field. It accomplishes that through a concentration tank, a series of ceramic and charcoal filters, an air filtration system and adjustments to the pH.

After leaving the plant, the water will be piped to two pits on Seaworth's property, called "leaky impoundments." These unlined pits will allow the purified oil field water to gradually seep back into the Boxelder Creek aquifer, as the current irrigation water does.

To get to this point, 3W has achieved several firsts. The idea of using water from oil fields was scrutinized rigorously by the state, by local health departments, the oil and gas industry and the Environmental Protection Agency, and the process has been both long and costly for 3W. In fact, Seaworth claimed, he's had about enough of being first.

"Everybody shoots at you," he commented.

In 2004, the company received a permit from the Colorado Division of Water Resources for using the produced water. This was the first such permit given in an oil field. It took two and a half years to prove the water was "nontributary," meaning it is cut off from rivers and streams in the drainage and therefore not a threat to existing water rights. The deep oil deposit, and the water that exists with it, are separated from the area's surface water by rock formations, but it took a detailed geologic study to prove that.

With nontributary water, the water used does not have to be replaced and can be used to extinction. However, the state requires that it last for at least 100 years, meaning that only 1 percent can be used each year.

In 2005, the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission gave approval for the water to leave the oil field, another first. Previously, this was not allowed for fear of contamination. Seaworth said the water would be heavily monitored to make sure it is clean.

The partners have more hurdles remaining, including filings with the state water court. They have filed for 161 acre-feet of water from the oil well, which would replace some well water now used for irrigation. The well water, in turn, would be purified for domestic use. According to Stewart, the plan would provide enough water for about 6,000 homes using dual water systems. Seaworth needs only 6 acre-feet for the housing project on his land.

Ag land preserved

Seaworth, whose family has farmed near Wellington for 60 years, especially wanted to avoid drying up more farmland in the area, which happens when developers buy a farmer's water rights for use in housing developments. The 3W project "will allow the development of land, and we don't have to dry up the farm to do it," he said.

There are other pluses, too. According to Stewart, the project "gets very high scores as a sustainable, green project" since there are no waste products involved. Less energy is used if the water doesn't have to be reinjected into the earth, and virtually all the oil can be recovered with the new, efficient system.

Opening more wells in the field will mean more tax money for Larimer County and Colorado, Pomeroy pointed out. He currently pays about $200,000 per year in ad valorem property taxes for the two fields he operates in the county, and that amount would increase with more wells.

Royalties will also increase for those holding mineral rights in the oil field, including Seaworth and some of his neighbors.

"There's a significant resource here, in both water and oil," Pomeroy said. He and Seaworth are determined to put those resources to use, just as their pioneering forebears did, but with the added benefit of new technology and higher prices for the products.