Spending on Wastewater Treatment for Fracking May Triple by 2020

Nov. 5 (Bloomberg) — U.S. hydraulic-fracturing companies
may triple spending on water treatment and reuse over the next
six years as drought in the West threatens supplies and
regulators enact stricter waste measures.

Spending may increase to $357 million in 2020 from $138
million this year, according to a report today from Boston-based
Bluefield Research. The industry is expected to spend a total of
almost $6.4 billion in 2014 on water management, including
treatment, supply, transport and storage.

Fracking companies also are expected to double the amount
of water that’s treated and reused to about 27 percent of total
produced and flowback water in 2020 from 14 percent now.

That will create an opportunity for companies that offer
treatment services and systems.

“We are going to see firms with advanced water-treatment
technologies competing for business against diesel trucks over
the next few years,” Erin Bonney Casey, a Bluefield analyst,
said in a statement. “Even though water treatment and reuse
costs have proven to be nearly 15 percent lower than trucking
and disposal in some cases, fracking companies have yet to fully
embrace treatment.”

To contact the reporter on this story:
Justin Doom in New York at
jdoom1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Randall Hackley at
rhackley@bloomberg.net
Will Wade

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