Technical Analysis of Freshwater Use as Part of a Responsibly Sourced Gas ESG Strategy

Abstract

The Unconventional Oil and Gas industry has seen growth over the last ten years that has drastically transformed the domestic energy outlook while bringing up increased concerns over climate and environmental issues. The rise of ESG and RSG can be seen as direct answers to these growing issues as communities and operators have both begun to demand better practices to limit the overall effects of UOG production. Few quantifiable metrics exist that holistically try to determine the overall effect UOG production has on local water resources. The FR2 metric/framework developed in this paper attempts to use commonly kept data such as water withdrawn and flowback volumes in conjunction with a new water stress index to quantify the effects operators are having on local water supplies. Testing this framework on a handful of operators from the Marcellus basin using open-source data re-vealed the value added by these methods as well as their use in a general RSG program.