U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY NATIONAL PRODUCED WATERS GEOCHEMICAL DATABASE: RESOURCE EXPLORATION OPPORTUNITIES IN THE GULF COAST REGION

Water co-produced during the extraction of hydrocarbons (‘produced waters’) represents the largest waste stream associated with the petroleum industry in the United States, resulting in ~1 trillion gallons of wastewater per year. The chemical composition of these produced waters provides valuable scientific information regarding subsurface fluids and basin-scale hydrogeologic processes that inform our understanding of petroleum production. Furthermore, these produced waters can contain valuable mineral commodities, including lithium, that recent estimates suggest could supply a significant fraction of future U.S. domestic demand.

In an ongoing effort to provide publicly accessible information regarding the inorganic and organic composition of produced waters, the U.S. Geological Survey maintains the National Produced Waters Geochemical Database (NPWGD). The latest version of the NPWGD (ver. 3.0), released in December 2023, compiles data from >110,000 produced water samples, with 210 geochemical and geological properties. An interactive online, Tableau®-based viewer allows the user to evaluate produced water geochemical trends by region and provides valuable information to public, government, academic, and private industry stakeholders for exploring produced water and brine mineral commodity resource potential. In the Gulf Coast region, the NPWGD contains historical data from approximately 18,000 oil and gas wells, whichprovide key modeling parameters for evaluating the brine resources in the areas with limited historical petroleum production. Here, we highlight the uses of the USGS NPWGD and demonstrate its benefit as a publicly available research tool for evaluating emerging brine commodity resources within the northern Gulf Coast region.