Can Wastewater from Oil and Gas Operations Be More Valuable Than Oil?
Valuable Wastewater from Oil and Gas Wells
The Wastewater (Brine) From Many Oil and Gas Wells Is Frequently Worth More Than The Oil and Gas Itself
Over 20 years ago, James Jones, a Centennial, Colorado chemist, and explorationist, made an observation that the wastewater, also known as brine, produced from some oil wells can contain critical and strategic minerals such as lithium, magnesium, zinc, cobalt, selenium, strontium, boron, and bromine.
Jones’ 30-years of experience in the mining and oil and gas industries led to his observations about a supersaturated brine being produced in Utah as a potential source of critical and strategic minerals.
During the next several decades, Jim kept these and other observations fresh in his mind while he explored for new oil and gas plays in Utah.
He felt that there had to be a natural physical process by which these brines formed and became supersaturated underground, where evaporation does not occur.
Brine Water Heavy with Minerals
One theory is that the mineral-rich brine reservoirs found deep underground could come from breaches that occurred in the earth’s crust over 300 million years ago.
These breaches can create hydrothermal cells which result in the dissolution of minerals contained in adjacent carbonate rocks. The resulting supersaturated brines can migrate into oil and gas reservoirs and can be exploited in a similar manner.
Jones made his initial observation when a friend asked him to look at a brine water sample from an anomalous well in Utah. Freshwater normally weighs 8.34 lbs. per gallon. When Jones lifted the 5-gallon container of supersaturated brine water, it was much heavier than he expected. It weighed 57 pounds or 11.4 lbs. per gallon.
This led Jones to believe that the brine water must contain many dissolved minerals including metals that might be valuable.
A standard field analysis of the water showed that this brine contained lithium, magnesium, and zinc in addition to a high concentration of calcium chloride.
The brine, just as it comes out of the wellhead without removing the valuable minerals, is worth more than oil on a per-barrel basis. It can be used as a road de-icer and dust-control product, according to a recent market research study.
Advantages of LiquidOre™
In 2017, Jones received his initial patent for finding, processing, and extracting critical and strategic metals from similar brines, defining this unique resource as “LiquidOre™”. The advantages of extracting minerals from LiquidOre™ brine as compared with many current mining practices include:
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- Significantly smaller environmental footprint, which streamlines the planning and permitting requirements as well as minimizing future reclamation liabilities.
- This hybrid exploration approach, with its relatively low capital requirements, can provide a more successful specialty mineral exploration project when compared to conventional mining projects which can take decades to bring on production
- Protection of our international trade interests by helping to bolster our domestic supply chain for critical and strategic minerals.
Supersaturated Brine Water
In 2018, Jones and several oil and gas industry veterans formed US Strategic Minerals Exploration, LLC. The company’s objective is to find, process and extract minerals from LiquidOre™ brines and importantly, to commercialize the capture of CO2 using LiquidOre™ brines. They are continuing to develop and soon will field test this new technology to prove the process is scalable for use in CO2 heavy industries like cement, fossil fuel power, and ethanol. Their 3rd patent pending describes the capture of industrial sources of CO2 in a reaction process that provides a new “green” aggregate product commonly used in the construction industry. Our website at https://us-strategic.com/what-we-do/ explains US Strategic’s novel CCUS technology in more detail.
For more information or to discuss how you help us in the development of economic carbon sequestration technologies, contact us today.
