GE, Statoil Seek Ways to Reduce, Reuse Shale Development Water

General Electric and Statoil’s Sustainability Collaboration has launched the call for entries for its second Open Innovation Challenge focusing on water usage in the development of onshore unconventional oil and gas reservoirs.

Through crowd sourcing, the challenge invites companies, innovators and institutions to find innovative ways to both reduce fresh water usage and treat and reuse water from development activities — while maintaining or improving productivity.

Water represents one of the greatest environmental stewardship challenges facing the oil and gas industry. Companies involved in onshore unconventional development and production, in particular, have a strong incentive to develop technologies and methods that reduce fresh water usage, as well as treat and recycle water that returns to the surface as part of their operations.

The collaboration was launched in January as a joint technology-focused program to drive industrial solutions to some of the biggest challenges facing global oil and gas production. The initiative seeks to reduce the environmental impact of oil and gas development and production by accelerating the development of environmentally and economically sustainable energy solutions.

In this second challenge, up to five winning entries will win a prize of $25,000 each and the opportunity to be eligible to receive additional funding from an available discretionary prize pool of $375,000 in development funds. Also, GE Oil & Gas and Statoil will leverage their joint assets and resources to support the commercialization of the winning submissions.

The launch of the Water Challenge comes just as the Sand Challenge (Reduced Use of Sand in Onshore Operations) draws to a close.  The Sand Challenge focused on reducing the amount of (or replacing) sand required to drill and maintain productive wells. Finalists in that challenge will be announced later in July.