THE PROBLEM: How to clean water used in oil and gas fields

Oil and gas operators in southern states use large volumes of water to flush petroleum deposits out of the ground. The ongoing difficulty is that during this process, the water becomes contaminated with suspended dirt, metals, grease and other fine particles. Before it can be discharged back into rivers and lakes, the water needs to be purified.

To clean the water, oil and gas companies employ various in-the-field techniques to force water through filtering membranes at high pressure. However, the dirty water quickly clogs the membranes, which then need to be cleaned or replaced. As costs rise, drilling becomes less and less economically attractive.
 

OUR SOLUTION: StormKlear

StormKlear, a division of HaloSource, offers products that effectively purify water after its use in drilling operations.

With a formulation based on chitosan—a biodegradable, ecologically-friendly polymer derived from the shells of crabs, shrimp and other crustaceans—StormKlear reduces the turbidity of the water by flocking, or clumping together, suspended material for easy filtration. As a result, it’s now economically feasible to clean the water to regulatory standards and discharge it safely back into the environment.

StormKlear is good for the environment in another way: By recycling the crustacean shells used in chitosan—900,000 pounds in 2009—StormKlear is keeping this waste out of landfills. StormKlear’s technology is now being adopted at an accelerating pace in oil-producing regions throughout the United States.