CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, BAKERFIELD

“Evaluation of electrochemical membrane separation process for treating water associated with

conventional oil production in Kern County, California”

Submitted to:

The Metropolitan Water District (MWD) of Southern California

700 North Alameda Street Los Angeles, California 90012

Attention: Benita Lynn Horn, 10th

Floor – Room 320

Total Amount Requested from MWD: $10,000

Project Strand: LOCAL

Submitted by:

California State University, Bakersfield

9001 Stockdale highway, Bakersfield, CA 93311

Dayanand Saini, Ph.D., Faculty Project Manager, Principal Investigator

Shrinidhi Shetty, M.S., Faculty Co-Principal Investigator

Timea Mezei, Student Project Manager

Mina Ghebryal, Student Project Team Member

December 21, 2015

ii

Proposal Title: “Evaluation of electrochemical membrane separation process for treating water

associated with conventional oil production in Kern County, California”

Submitted to: The Metropolitan Water District (MWD) of Southern California

700 North Alameda Street Los Angeles, California 90012

Attention: Benita Lynn Horn, 10th

Floor – Room 320

Submitted by: California State University, Bakersfield

9001 Stockdale highway, Bakersfield, CA 93311

Total Amount Requested from MWD: $10,000

Project Strand: LOCAL

Participants: Dayanand Saini, Ph.D., Faculty Project Manager, Principal Investigator

Shrinidhi Shetty, M.S., Faculty Co-Principal Investigator

Timea Mezei, Student Project Manager

Mina Ghebryal, Student Project Team Member

Project Summary

We propose to test the usefulness of patented electrochemical membrane separation

based process offered by the ABR Process Development Inc. in treating water associated with

conventional oil production in the Kern County. The process relies on removal of total dissolved

solids thus obtaining water of pre-specified chemical composition while extracting value-added

chemicals.

If proven economic, proposed strategy could potentially make almost 100,000 acre-ft of

associated water available, which is annually disposed by local oil industry, for agricultural

irrigation in water-stressed Kern County while generating desired quality sodium chloride

solution for recovering spent resin in the ion-exchange based water softening process.

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Contact Information

1.

College California State University, Bakersfield

Department Physics and Engineering

Make Check Payable To:

CSU Bakersfield Auxiliary for Sponsored Programs

Administration

2.

Application Strand Select One

LOCAL Evaluation of electrochemical membrane

separation process for treating water associated with

conventional oil production in Kern County, California

X

GLOBAL Project Name

3.

Faculty Project Manager Dayanand Saini, Ph.D.

Title Assistant Professor of Petroleum Engineering

Department Physics and Engineering

Campus Address Mail Stop 64 SCI, 9001 Stockdale Highway, Bakersfield,

CA 93311

Telephone / Email Address 661-654-2845 dsaini@csub.edu

4.

Faculty Project Manager Shrinidhi Shetty, M.S.

Title Lecturer (Engineering)

Department Physics and Engineering

Campus Address Mail Stop 64 SCI, 9001 Stockdale Highway, Bakersfield,

CA 93311

Telephone / Email Address 661-282-0476 Shrin83@gmail.com

5.

Student Project Manager Timea Mezei

Undergraduate or Graduate Undergraduate

Department Physics and Engineering

Cell Phone / Email Address 559-836-6775 tmezei@runner.csub.edu

6.

2

Contracts Manager / Officer Vincent Oragwam

Title Director, Grants Management Operations

Department Grants, Research, and Sponsored Programs

Campus Address Mail Stop 24 DDH, 9001 Stockdale Highway, Bakersfield,

CA 93311

Telephone / Email Address 661-654-2233 voragwam@csub.edu

7. Project Management Team

NAME TITLE /

ORGANIZATION

ADDRESS PHONE & EMAIL

1 Dayanand

Saini

Assistant Professor of

Engineering, CSUB

Faculty Project

Manager and

Principal Investigator

64 SCI, 9001

Stockhale

Highway, Bakersfield,

CA 93311

661-654-2845

dsaini@csub.edu

2 Shrinidhi

Shetty

Lecturer (Engineering),

CSUB

Co-Principal

Investigator

64 SCI, 9001

Stockhale

Highway, Bakersfield,

CA 93311

661-282-0476

Shrin83@gmail.com

3 Timea

Mezei

Student Project

Manager

5801 Ming Ave.

#24A

Bakersfield, CA 93309

559-836-6775

tmezei@runner.csub.edu

4. Mina

Ghebryal

Student Project Team

Member

101 Garnsey Ave.

#D

Bakersfield, CA

93309

818-267-9721

minaghebryal@gmail.com

5. Derek

Stephens

Business Development

Manager

ABR Process

Development

2310 Naples

Newport Beach,

CA 92660

714-878-0957

derek@abrprocess.com

3

8. Member Agency(ies) / Local Water Agency(ies)

NAME TITLE /

ORGANIZATION

ADDRESS PHONE & EMAIL

1 Benita Lynn

Horn on behalf

of Adrian

Hightower

Education Unit Manager,

External Affairs

Department

Metropolitan Water

District of Southern

California

700 North Alameda

Street Los Angeles,

California 90012

213-217-6739

bhorn@mwdh2o.com

Organizational Background

California State University, Bakersfield

California State University, Bakersfield (CSUB) is a non-Ph.D. granting institution located in

Kern County in the southern San Joaquin Valley (SJV) of California and it is the only

comprehensive 4-year university within a radius of over 100 miles. The vast majority of CSUB’s

student body comes from this region and the student body reflects its demographics. Of the 9,230

students enrolled in fall 2015, 59% were from groups underrepresented in the sciences,

engineering, and mathematics, with Hispanics at 51% the largest group, and African Americans

and Native Indians making up another 8%. As a result, CSUB has been designated a minority

(Hispanic-serving) institution.

The University serves more than 8,720 students at either the main campus in Bakersfield or

CSUB-Antelope Valley. Through its four schools: Arts and Humanities, Business and Public

Administration, Natural Sciences, Mathematics and Engineering, and Social Sciences and

Education, CSUB offers undergraduate, graduate, post-graduate and credential programs. With

over 70 percent of its alumni remain and work within the Kern County/SJV. As stated in the

university’s mission statement, university collaborates with partners in the community to

increase the region's overall educational attainment, enhance its quality of life, and support its

economic development.

Seven departments within the School of Natural Sciences, Mathematics, and Engineering

(NSME) offer Bachelor of Science, Bachelor of Arts, Master of Science and Master of Arts

degrees. With millions of dollars in federal grants and scholarships, state-of-the-art facilities,

outstanding faculty, and brand-new degree programs, NSME truly is on the cutting edge of

science and technology education to empower the Kern County economy.

As a part of NSME, the Department of Physics and Engineering offers Bachelor of Science

degree in Engineering Sciences with three emphases (Petroleum Engineering, Biosystems and

Agriculture Engineering, and Engineering and Management). The Engineering Sciences program

provides a curriculum and course of training that prepares the student not only for today's

challenges, but also for future ones in a fast-paced, global, and diverse society. The program

emphasizes the fundamentals of engineering and modern methods, processes and technologies,

and also gives the students the tools to learn by themselves and to pursue life-long learning.

Furthermore, the program and the faculty strive to ensure that graduates also attain a global

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understanding of the environmental, ethical and societal impacts of the technologies they help

develop.

ABR Process Development Inc. (Private business partner in the proposed study)

ABR Process Development Inc. (ABR) is an internationally recognized process and

technology development company headquartered out of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. ABR

seeks innovative solutions to overcome established and future challenges commonly associated

with a range of industries including beneficial uses of oilfield produced water. ABR employs a

range of technologies depending on the requirements, such as delivering potable or re-usable

water, regeneration of acids and alkalis, removal and recovery of metals, and removal of

poisonous substances such as arsenic, selenium etc. from water.

Recently, ABR and CSUB signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to develop and

maintain collaborative research for providing innovative solutions for improving inventory of

high quality water supply for local agriculture industry using oilfield produced water and to

facilitate the achievement of educational excellence at CSUB. One of the main objectives of

collaboration between ABR and CSUB is to research and develop customized water treatment

solutions for preparing water associated with conventional oil production in the Kern County for

agricultural irrigation and other beneficial industrial uses using ABR’s key technologies

including electrochemical membrane separation. Another key objective is to facilitate

independent research conducted by undergraduate engineering sciences students under the

supervision of CSUB engineering faculty that involve the use of ABR’s technologies. This is

aimed not only to increase engineering students’ understanding of water management related

issued in water-stress Kern County, which is agriculture and energy powerhouse of California,

but also to research and develop innovative strategies for stable and sustainable water supplies,

and to generate students’ interested in associated environmental and resource economics and

planning issues.

Certificate of Attendance

After learning about the MWD WWF College Grants Program, Dayanand Saini (Principal

Investigator) registered for the World Water Forum Webinar held on Dec 11, 2015. The same

was attended by Dayanand Saini and Shrinidhi Shetty (Co-principal Investigator). A screen shot

of the email confirming the attendance is given below.

5

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Project Description

Motivation and Identification of Local Water-related Management Challenges and

Opportunities

The Kern County area of San Joaquin Valley (SJV) region in the southern part of the Central

Valley is the energy and agricultural powerhouse of California however the area is struggling for

the last couple of years with a devastating water drought. This is mainly due to the lack of a

sustainable source for fresh water. The annual consumption of the water in municipal, industrial,

and agricultural uses in Kern County is around 400,000 acre-ft and 2.7 million acre-ft,

respectively (Water Association of Kern County (WAKC), 2015). Ground water supplies makes

approximately 31% (1 million acre-ft) of it. The area is demanding water from any source

accessible to acquire fresh water; however, it is likely that the water demand will increase while

the water supply decreases.

At the same time, conventional oil production in the Oil and Gas District 4 (Kern, Tulare,

and Inyo Counties) results in almost 1,886,389,638 barrels (bbl) or ~243,000 acre-ft of water

production annually (Figure 1, (source 2014 preliminary report of California oil and gas

production statistics published by Division of Oil, Gas & Geothermal Resources (DOGGR) of

the California’s Department of Conservation available at

ftp://ftp.consrv.ca.gov/pub/oil/annual_reports/2014/PR03_PreAnnual_2014.pdf). It is noted here

that almost all of the oil and gas production in District 4 occurs in the Kern County. Because this

water production is associated with oil and gas production operations hence it has been termed as

associated water here. Though local oil industry does a good job by using a significant fraction

(almost 60%) of this associated water either in generating steam for steam-flooding based oil

recovery operations (Figure 2) or providing it to local water districts for beneficial industrial

reuses (http://www.turnto23.com/news/local-news/chevron-selling-treated-water-to-cawelo-

water-district072515) including agricultural irrigation however there still remains 733,927,947

bbl (~94,600 acre-ft) of water that is currently being disposed the industry (Figure 2).

Figure 1. 2014 Oil, gas, and water production from oil fields of Oil and Gas District 4 comprised of Kern, Tulare,

and Inyo Counties (image modified from 2014 preliminary report of California oil and gas production

statistics published by Division of Oil, Gas & Geothermal Resources (DOGGR) of the California’s

Department of Conservation, July 2015).

At the same time, local oil industry is also facing new environmental and regulatory

challenges (Notice to Operators CA DOGGR, September, 2015) for reducing the amount of

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disposal into shallow aquifers. According to publically available data (DOGGR website,

ftp://ftp.consrv.ca.gov/pub/oil/D4%20Chemical%20Analysis/:) on the concentrations of

individual chemical constituents in associated water, around 40,000 acre-ft or 40% of currently

disposed volume of associated water is of high quality (i.e. 10,000 part per million (ppm) total

dissolved solids (TDS) or less) thus qualifying as underground source of drinking water

(USDW) under U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) standards

(http://www.epa.gov/uic/aquifer-exemptions-underground-injection-control-program). The TDS

values for rest (i.e. ~ 55,000 acre-ft) of the currently disposed water range from 27,216 to 77,144

ppm. Examples of associated water composition analysis data (both low and high TDS

associated water) available at DOGGR website are shown in Table 1. It is worth to note here that

table 1 contains the maximum/minimum concentration of an individual ion that is reported in

water composition reports available on DOGGR website. The same has been used to calculate

the TDS values reported in Table 1.

Figure 2. 2014 steam and water injection by field in Oil and Gas District 4 comprised of Kern, Tulare, and Inyo

Counties (image modified from 2014 preliminary report of California oil and gas production statistics

published by Division of Oil, Gas & Geothermal Resources (DOGGR) of the California’s Department of

Conservation, July 2015).

Table 1: Example of associated water composition typically observed in local oilfields (complied from chemical

analyses data available on DOGGR website)

Associated water composition (low TDS) Associated water composition (high TDS)

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The recent advancement in water treatment technologies especially the development of

several electrochemistry based emerging water treatment technologies (Igunnu and Chen, 2012),

it is reasonable to say that this 100,000 acre-ft of associated water could potentially be added to

existing inventory of associated water being used for various beneficial reuses in the Kern

County including agricultural irrigation. Around 55,000 acre-ft of water is currently being used

for beneficial reuses (Factsheet available at the Cawelo Water District’s website

(http://www.cawelowd.org/files/Download/Cawelo%20Produced%20Water%20Fact%20Sheet%

209.1.15.pdf). However, usefulness of electrochemistry based emerging water treatment

technologies in cost effective and environmentally friendly treatment of associated water, first,

needs to be evaluated in the laboratory using the representative associated water samples before

launching commercial scale pilot studies.

One of the emerging water treatment technologies namely electrochemical membrane

separation technology appears to be an attractive option for treating associated water for

obtaining pre-specified chemical composition water while efficiently recovering value-added

chemicals from feed wastewater stream. One of such pre-specified chemical composition

includes agricultural irrigation standard (Figure 3 (source

http://www.waterboards.ca.gov/centralvalley/board_decisions/adopted_orders/kern/r5-2012-

0058.pdf)) which is particularly important for local agriculture industry for providing a stable but

alternative source of fresh ground water for irrigation.

Figure 3. Example of irrigation water standard in the Kern County (As per the order R5-2012-0058 (waste

discharge requirement, California Regional Water Quality Control Board, Central Valley Region

available at http://www.waterboards.ca.gov/centralvalley/board_decisions/adopted_orders/kern/r5-

2012-0058.pdf).

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However, such strategy needs to be evaluated first for its usefulness before field scale

implementations. When it comes to generation of value-added chemicals for beneficial industrial

uses, water softening process is particularly important to local oil industry. Local oil industry

requires large volumes of high quality steam for running its steam injection (Figure 2) based oil

production operations in Kern County. For steam generation, industry mainly relies on associated

water. Prior to use of associated water for steam generation its harness (i.e. scale causing salts

such as calcium sulfate) is removed by water softening processes which is often based on ion-

exchange principle. The ion-exchange based water softening process not only require high

quality brine for recovering the spent ion-exchange resin for reuse but also generate an effluent

stream of concentrated brine which requires proper disposal. It puts both financial and regulatory

burdens on the local oil industry.

Water Treatment Strategy That Will Be Evaluated in Proposed Research

One of the electrochemistry based emerging water treatment process is based on the patented

technology (Blunn, 2013) offered by the ABR Process Development Inc. (ABR). ABR is an

internationally recognized process and technology development company headquartered out of

Brisbane, Queensland, Australia (ABR Process Development website, 2015.

http://www.abrprocess.com/services.html). ABR’s patented technology relies on electrochemical

membrane separation based removal of total dissolved solids thus obtaining water of pre-

specified chemical composition while extracting value-added chemicals for beneficial industrial

uses especially water softening process.

ABR’s electrochemical membrane separation technology based water treatment strategy

(Figure 4) also appears to be an attractive option for regenerating high quality brine from the

effluent brine stream of water softening processes (e.g. ion-exchange based water softening

processes) using associated water as feed stream.

In the proposed research we propose to test the usefulness and efficacy of ABR’s technology

based water treatment strategy in treating associated water of varies composition and TDS values

for obtaining treated water of pre-specified chemical composition especially the one that will

meet agricultural irrigation water management standards set by local water districts (example

shown in Figure 3). This is aimed to add almost 100,000 acre-ft annually to the associated water

based inventory of high quality water supply for agriculture industry in water-stressed Kern

County.

The usefulness of the process will also be tested to generate value-added high quality sodium

chloride solution for recovering spent resin in the ion-exchange based water softening process

which is employed by local oil industry for generating steam to use in oil production operations.

The inclusion of the scheme of brine regeneration for water softening application in the strategy

that will be researched is to keep the cost of such strategy equivalent or less compared to existing

water treatment technologies along with aim to provide an environmentally friendly (zero liquid

discharge) solution to local oil and agriculture industries. More details on this aspect of proposed

research could be found in Page 2 of Appendix 1.

ABR and CSUB have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to develop and

maintain collaborative research for providing innovative water treatment solutions to local oil

and agriculture industries. The proposed study will also facilitate the achievement of educational

excellence at CSUB including exposing CSUB engineering sciences students to environmental

and economic issues faced by local oil and agriculture industries and to better prepare them for a

rewarding career in these local industries upon graduation. Under this MOU, ABR and CSUB

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plan to develop and execute education and research projects involving ABR’s innovative and

patent protected technologies, writing joint research proposals in order to pursue funding for the

projects, and publishing results in appropriate venues.

Figure 4. Schematic of ABR’s patented electrochemical membrane separation technology based strategy that will be

researched in proposed project.

The proposed research will be performed at CSUB (Fluid Dynamic Laboratory, Department

of Physics and Engineering). A recently procured internal CSUB grant (Appendix 1) is serving

as foundation for the proposed research. Using the integral grant ($5000), PI and his team is

currently working on designing and construction of laboratory scale test system (Figure 5)

involving ABR’s patented electrochemical membrane separation technology. The same will be

used in the proposed research.

Figure 5. Schematic of under construction laboratory scale test system design that will be used in proposed research.

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The building of test system is expected to be completed by the end of 2016 winter quarter.

The testing of built system and preliminary experimentations will be performed during 2016

spring quarter. Necessary design modifications and other issues related to functioning of the

system, if any, will be completed by June 30, 2016.

The recently procured and internal CSUB grant will also assist PI and his team in obtaining

representative feed water samples (i.e. effluent water stream of a typical ion-exchange based

soften processing plant that uses associated water as feed stream) for evaluating the cost

effectiveness of proposed strategy in brine regeneration for ion-exchange spent resin recovery

(see page 2 of Appendix 1).

Associated water compositions shown in Table 1, will be used for preparing synthetic feed

water for covering the entire range of associated water’s chemical composition observed in local

oilfields. As can be seen from Table 1, associated water chemical composition vary greatly from

low TDS (600 ppm to 10,000 ppm or less) and high TDS (in excess of 10,000 ppm). In view of

that, the proposed research will use a total of five feed water batches (Table 2).

Individual ion concentration shown in Table 1 (min and max of Low TDS, and min and max

of high TDS) will be used for preparing feed water batches no. 1, 2, 3, and 4. For feed water

batch A, feed water composition will depend on the used ion-exchange resin that would be

investigated in the separate research work already funded by internal CSUB grant (described in

Appendix 1).

Table 2: Feed water batches to be tested in the proposed research

Table 3: Variables to evaluate the usefulness of associated water treatment strategy researched in the proposed

research and to develop simple decision tree and cost models

Feed water Processed water

Flow rate

Treated water composition (e.g. pre-

specified composition to meet irrigation

water management standards)

Alkali Metal (sodium, potassium, calcium,

magnesium) concentration (ppm) Sodium Hydroxide concentration (%w/v)

Sulfate or chloride concentration (ppm) Hydrochloric acid concentration (%w/v)

TDS (ppm) Sodium Chloride concentration (%w/v)

pH pH

Feed Water Batch No. TDS

(ppm)

1 (Low TDS associated water with minimum

concentrations of individual ions shown in Table 1) 599.7

2 (Low TDS associated water with maximum

concentrations of individual ions shown in Table 1) 8317.6

3 (High TDS associated water with minimum

concentrations of individual ions shown in Table 1) 27216.1

4 (High TDS associated water with maximum

concentrations of individual ions shown in Table 1) 77143.9

A (Ion-exchange effluent ) Dependent of ion-exchange resin A

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For the proposed research, Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometer (ICPMS) facility

available at CSUB’s California Energy Research Center (CERC) Mineral/Elemental

Composition Laboratory

(http://www.csub.edu/energycenter/Facilities/index.html#Mineral/Elemental%20Composition%2

0Laboratory) will be used for performing detailed compositional analyses of both feed water

batches and resulted processed water.

Apart from performing physical experiments, simple calculation spreadsheet based decision

tree and cost models will be developed for estimating technical (e.g. size of a commercial scale

treatment facility for treating a specific chemistry associated water) and the economic (e.g.

number of treatment facilities) resources needed for adding 100,000 acre-ft of water (pre-

specified chemical composition) to existing irrigation water inventory while reducing the water

treatment cost via generation of value-added chemicals (e.g. hydrochloric acid, sodium

hydroxide, and sodium chloride solutions).

The main experimental variables that will be used to evaluate the usefulness of associated

water treatment strategy researched in the proposed research and to develop simple decision tree

and cost models are given in Table 3.

Anticipated Outcomes, Project Projection Benefits, Environmental Significance, and

Sustainability Potential

If proven economically and technically feasible in laboratory testing, electrochemical

membrane separation based associated water treatment strategy could potentially make almost

100,000 acre-ft of processed water (or 94,600 acre-ft as per 2014 data, preliminary report of

California oil and gas production statistics published by DOGGR available at

ftp://ftp.consrv.ca.gov/pub/oil/annual_reports/2014/PR03_PreAnnual_2014.pdf) of pre-specified

chemical composition to local water districts for adding to their existing associated water based

irrigational water inventory. In future the volume of associated water is expected to grow as

existing oil production operations mature in the area.

This 94,600 acre-ft of water is annually disposed by local oil industry which is currently

facing regulatory constraints related to ongoing underground disposal operations. The proposed

research will provide necessary information and data to local oil industry for initiating field scale

pilot testing of the strategy researched in the proposed project.

The other anticipated outcomes include assisting oil industry in reducing the use of fresh salt

(sodium chloride) for preparing brine needed for spent ion-exchange resin recovery. It will not

only reduce the cost of existing ion-exchange based water softening processes used by local oil

industry but it will also make softening process sustainable and environmentally friendly by

significantly reducing the volume of effluent stream (concentered brine) that currently requires

disposal via underground injection.

In long term, CSUB and ABR plan to work closely with local oil industry for conducting

pilot tests and commercial scale implementation of the strategy. It will help both oil and

agriculture industries in adding a sustainable but alternate source of irrigational water while

combating the management challenges related to underground disposal of associated water in

environmentally friendly and cost effective manner.

As can be seen from Table 1 (associated water composition typically observed in local

oilfields), Boron concentration in associated water varies from as low as 1 ppm to as high as 161

ppm. This is one of the biggest concerns when it comes to treating associated water when it

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comes to treating associated water using treatment strategies like the one proposed in this study.

The proposed research is also expected to assist CSUB to lay down the foundation for

conducting future research to evaluate the efficacy of “supercritical carbon dioxide” based

removal of Boron.

Research Team’s Experience and Technical Capabilities

The proposed research will be performed a team of two undergraduate student researchers

and two faculty members at CSUB. The Faculty Project Manager, Dr. Dayanand Saini is an

Assistant Professor of Engineering in the Department of Physics and Engineering. His area of

expertise is petroleum engineering with a focus on experimental and numerical modeling of fluid

(oil, water, and gas) flow in porous media, geologic CO2 injection for oil recovery and storage

purposes, rock/fluids interactions, and water management issues pertaining to oil industry. At

CSUB, Dr. Saini teaches (or have taught) various core engineering courses including

Thermodynamics, Fluid Mechanics, and Heat Transfer and petroleum engineering electives

including Petroleum Production Engineering and Drilling Engineering & Completion

Technology and performs research in the area of petroleum engineering including associated

water management issues. Dr. Saini has authored and co-authored couple of peer reviewed

journal articles/study reports focused on associated water management and its potential uses

including a 2012 study (IEAGHG report 2012-12, 2012) conducted for the International Energy

Agency (IEA) in which feasibility of extraction of formation water by means of CO2 injection

and its potential beneficial uses was investigated. Several CSUB undergraduate engineering

sciences students and graduate geology students are actively engaged in Dr. Saini’s program of

research at CSUB as evident from recently published student led research (Saini et al., 2015 (a)).

Dr. Saini is currently leading a study focused on potential opportunity forecast on the

beneficial reuse of oil field water in the State of California. He has recently procured an internal

grant ($5000) titled “Design and building of small laboratory scale brine regeneration test system

for developing cost effective and sustainable oilfield-produced water softening strategy for steam

generation” (Appendix 1). He will be presenting his recently completed work (Saini et al.,

2015(b)) at the SPE Hydraulic Fracturing Technology Conference to be held on 9-11 February

2016, The Woodlands, Texas, USA. Dr. Saini will be responsible for overall supervision and

execution of the proposed research.

Mr. Shrinidhi Shetty holds an M.S. degree in Petroleum Engineering from the Louisiana

State University (LSU), Baton Rouge and B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from

Visvesvaraya Technological University, Belgaum, India. Prior to joining CSUB, he has held a

senior reservoir engineers position at Cairn India Ltd performing simulation of flow of fluids in

the subsurface geologic formation. In addition, he has considerable experience building

laboratory scale experimental apparatuses like the high pressure core flooding apparatus at LSU.

His areas of interest are reservoir simulation and CO2 enhanced oil recovery and storage

processes. Mr. Shetty will assist Dr. Saini in developing experimental work plan and decision

and cost models and supervise laboratory experimental work performed by student research

team.

Both Dr. Saini and Mr. Shetty have past experiences of conducting elevated-pressure

elevated-temperature experimental work involving “supercritical carbon dioxide” (Saini and

Rao, 2010; Afonja et al., 2012). The proposed research will lay down the foundation for

conducting future research to evaluate the efficacy of “supercritical carbon dioxide” based

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removal of Boron which is one of the biggest concerns when it comes to treating associated

water using treatment strategies like the one proposed in this study.

Ms. Timea Mezei is currently a junior year student in the B.S. in engineering sciences with

petroleum engineering emphasis program at CSUB. She is actively involved in Dr. Saini’s

associated water management related research at CSUB. She has presented her work at recently

held Southern California Conference for Undergraduate Research (SCCUR) at Harvey Mudd

College, Claremont, CA (Mezei et. al, 2015). As a Student Project Manager, she will be leading

the laboratory experimentation efforts and will be assisting Dr. Saini and Mr. Shetty in in

analyzing collected experimental data. She will also be responsible of coordinating CSUB

Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometer (ICPMS) facility to get the desired feed and

processed water sample analyses while assisting other team members in conducting laboratory

experiments and analyzing collected data.

Mr. Mina Ghebryal holds an Associated Degree from Los Angeles Pierce College in

Science, Technologies, Engineering and Mathematics. Currently he is working on his B.S. in

engineering sciences degree at CSUB. He is currently assisting Dr. Saini in designing and

building the laboratory scale test system that will be used in proposed research and is involved

conducting various experiments related to recovery of spent ion-exchange resin. As a Student

Project Team member, Mr. Ghebryal will be helping with laboratory experimentation and data

collection efforts.

Project Schedule

If funded, project research will be performed as per the project schedule given below.

References

Water Association of Kern County (WAKC), 2015. (http://www.wakc.com/index.php/water-

overview/overview/69-water-in-kern-county), accessed Dec, 2015.

15

Division of Oil, Gas & Geothermal Resources (DOGGR), California’s Department of

Conservation, 2015. Preliminary report California oil and gas production statistics (PR03), July,

available online at

ftp://ftp.consrv.ca.gov/pub/oil/annual_reports/2014/PR03_PreAnnual_2014.pdf.

The California Department of Conservation, Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources

(DOGGR) website (ftp://ftp.consrv.ca.gov/pub/oil/D4%20Chemical%20Analysis/:), accessed

June, 2015.

United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 2015. Underground sources of drinking

water (USDW) definition (http://www.epa.gov/uic/aquifer-exemptions-underground-injection-

control-program), accessed Dec, 2015.

Igunnu E.T. and Chen, G.Z., 2012. Produced water treatment technologies. International Journal

of Low-Carbon Technologies, 0, pp. 1-21.

Cawelo Water District website, Factsheet,

http://www.cawelowd.org/files/Download/Cawelo%20Produced%20Water%20Fact%20Sheet%

209.1.15.pdf , accessed Dec, 2015.

Order R5-2012-0058 (waste discharge requirement, California Regional Water Quality Control

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http://www.waterboards.ca.gov/centralvalley/board_decisions/adopted_orders/kern/r5-2012-

0058.pdf, accessed Dec, 2015.

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salt solutions. Patent Application CA 2877596.

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Dec, 2015.

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researchers: Klapperich, R.J., Cowan, R.M., Gorecki, C.D., Liu, G., Bremer, J.M., Holubnyak,

Y.I., Kalenze, N.S., Botnen, L.S., Saini, D., LaBonte, J.L., Knudsen, D.J., Stepan, D.J.,

Steadman, E.N., Harju, J.A.).

Saini, D., Jimenez, I., Reedy, C. D., Houghton, M., 2015 (a). A Pseudo-SAGD Scoping Model

for Evaluating Economic Viability of Heavy Oil Projects, Journal of Petroleum Science and

Engineering, Volume 137, January 2016, Pages 125-133.

Saini, D., Mezei, T., 2015 (b). Potential use of oilfield-produced water for hydraulic fracturing

operations in California: effect of brine chemistry on guar gum’s crosslinking and breaking

behaviors, Abstract no. - HydraFrac 2016-5710., accepted for e-poster presentation at the ASME

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16

Saini, D. and Rao, D.N.: “Experimental determination of minimum miscibility pressure (MMP)

by gas/oil IFT measurements for a gas injection EOR project,” SPE paper 132389 presented at

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doi:10.2118/150634-MS

Mezei, T., Rosas, A., Saini, D., 2015. Potential use of oilfield-produced water for hydraulic

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breaking behaviors, poster presented at the Southern California Conference for Undergraduate

Research (SCCUR), Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA, November 21.

Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometer (ICPMS) facility available at CSUB’s California

Energy Research Center (CERC) Mineral/Elemental Composition Laboratory

(http://www.csub.edu/energycenter/Facilities/index.html#Mineral/Elemental%20Composition%2

0Laboratory).

17

Financial Criteria

For the present research proposal, ABR will provide an in-kind contribution worth $5000 for

facilitating on-site training on incorporating ABR’s patented technology into the proposed test

system (Appendix 2). Since CSUB is outside of Metropolitan’s service area, MWD has kindly

agreed to serve as “local agency,” for CSUB during the application process (Appendix 3).

Budget Overview

MWD and Matching Funds

Description Amount Notes

Grant Funds Requested from

MWD

$10,000.00 Funds to support experimental work at CSUB

In-kind contribution from

ABR Development Inc.

$5000.00 On-site training on incorporating ABR’s

patented technology into the built test system

Project Total $10,000

Note: Dr. Saini and Mr. Shetty will volunteer their time to design experiment matrix and to

supervise the experimental work done by the CSUB student project team.

MWD Budget Breakdown

Line Item Amount Notes

Stipend $6300.00 Two undergraduate students, each of them will

work 10 hr/wk for 30 weeks at $10.50/hr

Water sample analysis $2000.00 Charges for using CSUB Inductively Coupled

Plasma Mass Spectrometer (ICPMS) facility to

perform detailed compositional analyses on

water samples (feed and processed)

Laboratory Supplies $700.00 Various laboratory salts, report and

presentation/poster preparation

Overheard Fees $1000.00 Calculated at 10% as per RFP

MWD Project Total $10,000

1

Appendix 1

2

1

Appendix 2

2

1

Appendix 3