DENVER - Two companies working together have perfected a
method of turning wastewater from oil and gas wells into
distilled water that can be used for agriculture, or to
vastly reduce the environmental footprint the oil and gas
industry has on the land.

Earlier this month Laramie Energy LLC utilized the
technology of Altela’s on-site purification system to turn
brackish wastewater into 7,000 gallons of clean distilled
water that was released into the Colorado River near Rifle.

Across the western United States alone, more than five
billion gallons per day of brackish “produced water” is
brought to the surface during oil and gas production. In the
past, this wastewater has been re-injected deep back into the
ground where it came from, never to be used again, and it
must be hauled away at great cost over long trucking
distances.

New Water Source for the Dry West

With Altela’s new water-saving technique, the brackish water
can be purified on-site and used beneficially. Turning this
wastewater into usable water benefits farmers, ranchers, and
communities across the water-starved western United States
and helps address the country’s water and energy security.

“We have created a new water source for the arid west,” said
Altela CEO Ned Godshall. “This new system could create up to
five billion gallons of water per day of safe, usable
distilled water for our communities and our farms.”

System Reduces Costs and Carbon Footprint

In many domestic wells, for every barrel of oil or gas
brought from within the earth, more than nine barrels of
brackish water must be hauled away or re-injected into the
earth. Altela’s system treats the water at the wellhead,
which can then be used for agriculture or for further energy
extraction.

In addition, new oil and gas techniques use large amounts of
water under pressure to extract the oil and gas from
underground. Currently, that water must be hauled onto the
site, using precious water resources and requiring roads and
trucks to bring the water in. Now that water can be cleaned
at the site and used for pressure extraction, thereby
bypassing the need for trucks of clean water from other
sites.

“The oil and gas industry can dramatically reduce its carbon
footprint by doing away with most water trucks and road
travel in our pristine wilderness,” said Godshall. “We can
now use on-site water that’s purified to do the pressure
extraction. This will help us find and extract new energy
resources while protecting our natural resources.”

Altela’s ARS-4000 system removes all contaminates from the
water co-produced with natural gas production.

Altela and Laramie Energy received precedent-setting
environmental regulatory approval to discharge and re-use
clean, treated frac and produced water from the patented
AltelaRain(SM) system for irrigation, commercial and
industrial uses, including discharging into the Colorado
River Basin for valuable in-stream flow rights.

Laramie Energy’s President, Bruce Payne, said, “Our
collaboration with the Altela team and its revolutionary
technology represents a unique and compelling opportunity to
lower our costs of produced water handling and disposal while
creating a new source of clean water in the arid west in
support of responsible energy production.”

Altela’s Godshall remarked that the venture with Laramie
Energy was truly a win-win solution.

“Laramie Energy is visionary in its commitment to
environmentally sustainable energy production and we are
honored to be their partner in reducing production waste
handling costs while creating a new valuable water asset in
the over-appropriated Colorado River Basin. Rarely does such
a win-win solution exist.” 

Learn more about Altela’s wastewater treatment system at www.altelainc.com.