New Mexico is now requiring oil and gas operators to report a bit of information regarding water use. Companies will have to report how much water is used to complete a well.

Between two and eight million gallons of water is used to frack a well. The New Mexico Bureau of Geology & Mineral Resources reports that there are currently 110,000 oil and natural gas wells in the state.

According to the Albuquerque Journal, collecting this data is an effort to investigate how water is used across the economic sectors in the state, and will provide data regarding how water is used in industry.

Obviously, tracking the amount and quality of water coming up with oil and gas (produced water) is the next logical step.




Sources:

https://www.kob.com/albuquerque-nes/new-mexico-to-require-details-of-water-for-oil-well-drilling/5937656/?cat=504

https://drillingmatters.iadc.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Water_Use_of_Drilling_and_fracturing.pdf

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/water-use-rises-as-fracking-expands/

https://geoinfo.nmt.edu/faq/energy/petroleum/home.html#:~:text=We%20maintain%20the%20New%20Mexico,logs%2C%20and%20other%20well%20information.