Produced Water (PW) treatment is a major area for R&D in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, providing huge market opportunities for PW management equipment and service providers.
PW is a by product of oil and gas extraction and needs special handling like any industrial waste. The PW market will witness continued growth as the PW Society, Global Water Summit, International Islamic Trade Finance Corporation, Qatar National Research Fund, a few water treatment companies, educational institutions, and government agencies in the region work to improve existing PW treatment standards.
New analysis from Frost & Sullivan entitled ‘Produced Water Market Analysis in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Countries’, finds that the market earned revenues of $316.8 Million in 2013 and estimates this to reach $482.6 Million in 2017.
“Considering the large total proven oil reserves in the GCC, the amount of PW generated is quite high,” said Kshitij Nilkanth, program manager, Environmental Technologies, Frost & Sullivan. “To address the mammoth task of safely handling PW and extracting maximum oil before disposal, various governments are investing in R&D through joint efforts and grants, such as the $0.7 Million provided by Qatar National Research Fund to ConocoPhilips, for the development of newer technologies.”
Other countries like the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, however, have a lower water cut (PW proportion of total production) and therefore, do not invest in PW management. Suppliers in these countries are not given a clear idea about current or future management strategies, hindering them from knowing and addressing requirements. In fact, many oil and gas companies do not even monitor water produced from the fields and are unaware of the various options to manage PW.
Enhanced oil recovery (EOR) technologies too can be disruptive to the PW management market as EOR restrains the volume of PW generated from a well. On the other hand, growing volumes of oil and gas extraction will continue to produce a large amount of PW that offsets the PW volume drop enabled by EOR methods.
While the PW management equipment market is competitive, the services segment is relatively new in GCC and will be a high-growth sector in the long run.
“One of the most effective ways to enter the GCC PW management market is through joint research collaboration to utilise the technology developed within the region,” said Nilkanth. “This will help capture the domestic market, increase technology knowhow, and develop relationships with customers to ensure more projects.”
