Chevron to Have Wastewater Pipeline for Permian Operation

Chevron USA Inc. has commissioned the construction of a pipeline to dispose of wastewater from its extraction activities in the Permian Basin.

The Chevron Corp. subsidiary signed a contract with Pilot Water Solutions LLC (PWS) for the latter to “construct and operate a large-diameter pipeline and related disposal infrastructure to safely, efficiently and effectively transport produced water away from Culberson County, Texas for shallow disposal in Reeves County, Texas”, PWS said in a press release Wednesday.

The pipeline will serve the Delaware section of the basin.

PWS did not provide a construction timeline for the “long-term contract”.

“Our goal is to be the most reliable and sustainable water midstream provider in the energy sector”, PWS chief executive Anuj Sharma said in the announcement. “A key pillar of our operations is to offer best-in-class services that effectively manage produced water, protect the environment and improve water sustainability in the Permian Basin”.

It has merged with Oilfield Water Logistics, maintaining the PWS brand, in a bid to lead midstream water operations in the Northern Delaware Basin. The partnership would serve “growing recycling needs in New Mexico”, they said in a joint announcement September 16.

“Together, PWS will have a nationwide footprint of 129 saltwater disposal wells, 850 miles of pipelines, 2.5 million barrels of water per day of disposal capacity, and 34 source, recycling, and evaporation facilities across the Permian, Eagle Ford, Marcellus, Utica, Haynesville, and Rockies”, last year’s announcement stated.

Chevron is one of the top producers in the Permian, a shale basin spanning about 75,000 miles across western Texas and eastern New Mexico. A 16 percent year-on-year rise in Chevron’s unconventional production in the Permian, an all-time high, drove an average output of three million net barrels of oil equivalent a day (boed) in 2022, according to the company’s annual report released February 23. Chevron expects to increase last year’s 707,000 boed contribution from the Permian by 10 percent in 2023.

The annual report said measures to remedy groundwater and soil contamination comprised a bulk of Chevron’s environment-related liabilities of $868 million as of yearend 2022.

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