Technology Focus: Water Management (December 2025)

_ We end 2025 with a head-spinning number of activities around the globe, each adopting a variety of water-management practices. In the Gulf of Mexico, we witnessed the rise of Paleogene ultrahigh-pressure projects. Elsewhere in the Gulf, there was a flurry of announcements and final investment decisions for major facility expansions, subsea tiebacks, new water injectors, and the inauguration of waterfloods. Onshore in Texas, new Railroad Commission regulations came into effect to facilitate and promote produced-water recycling and beneficial reuse, aiming to reduce injected volumes. The Texas House passed Bill 49 to address the water crisis, reduce injection volumes, and boost innovation and investment in advanced treatment systems. The Texas Supreme Court clarified that subsurface pore-space ownership is a possessory right of the surface owner. Meanwhile, Oklahoma saw increased regulatory oversight for enhanced seismic monitoring of water-disposal wells, and New Mexico imposed a fee per barrel of produced water, with exceptions for enhanced oil recovery and recycling. At the federal level, the EPA announced modernization of Effluent Limitations Guidelines to evaluate new technologies and management strategies, providing additional flexibility for beneficial reuse of produced water—including for artificial intelligence, data centers, and rangeland irrigation. In South America, Guyana and Brazil made headlines with new discoveries; deployment of new floating production, storage, and offloading units; and plans for subsea seawater and raw-water injection to support production. In the UK North Sea, the focus shifted to maximizing resource recovery from existing fields by using current infrastructure and achieving zero discharge. The recent Murlach development exemplifies this trend. A 2025 report for the UK Continental Shelf noted a 14% reduction in produced-water discharges, a 2% increase in produced-water reinjection, and an 8% reduction in dispersed oil in produced-water discharge. Many other regions are implementing unique water-management strategies, each deserving its own detailed discussion. If there is a key takeaway as 2025 comes to a close, it is the new level of diligence and depth in water-management planning, along with a growing recognition of the need to invest in more-complex methods and sophisticated technologies. Summarized Papers in This December 2025 Issue OTC 35993 - Decision-Support System Optimizes Produced-Water Management by Ashish K. Loomba, SPE, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, and Gaute S. Aaboen and Prashant K. Soni, Aker BP, et al. SPE 226921 - Plasma-Based Technology Enables Efficient Produced-Water Treatment, Recycling, and Reuse by Anton Manakhov, Subhash Ayirala, SPE, and Dongkyu Cha, SPE, Saudi Aramco. SPE 225181 - Zero-Liquid-Discharge, Zero-Mineral-Discharge Process Recovers Water, Extracts Salts by Pramod D. Patil, SPE, and Moin Muhammad, SPE, NESR, and Hamidreza Samouei, Texas A&M University. Recommended Additional Reading at OnePetro: www.onepetro.org. URTeC 4265270 - PHREEQC-Informed Machine Learning for Predicting Scaling Indices in Permian Basin Produced Waters by Claudia Molina, SeguEN Technologies, et al. SPE 223566 - Vaca Muerta: A Technical Approach to the Path of Sustainability in Water Reuse by Rosario Daniela Velo, YPF, et al. SPE 226820 - Impact of Partitioning on Chemical Risk Assessment by C.D.B. Dawson, BP