Texas Company Pioneers Freeze Desalination for Oilfield Wastewater Reuse Amid Disposal Crisis
Texas Pacific Water Resources, a subsidiary of Texas Pacific Land Corp., is implementing freeze desalination technology to treat produced water from oil and gas operations in the Permian Basin. This initiative comes as Texas faces a critical shortage of underground disposal space for the nearly 1 billion gallons of wastewater generated daily by oil and gas production. The company's facility in Orla is designed to treat 10,000 barrels (420,000 gallons) of produced water daily. The freeze desalination process separates salts from water molecules, allowing approximately half of the treated water to be recovered for reuse, while the remaining concentrated brine is disposed of underground. This technology is being explored as an alternative to traditional underground injection, which has been linked to increased seismic activity and blowouts. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) is currently developing permitting programs for the reuse of treated produced water, with pilot projects like Texas Pa...