As more and more world major oil fields mature, more water begins to be produced from oil producers because of aquifer encroachment and/or water injection. Currently, it has been well known that the oil industry has to handle more produced water than oil which makes the oil industry looks more like a "water industry". How to wisely handle the tremendous amount of unwanted produced water is an imperative task that most oil companies have to face. This paper describes the development of produced water management techniques in the petroleum industry and summarizes what petroleum engineers have learnt so far. Various cases are discussed on the produced water management in the industry. The results of our study indicate if the unwanted produced water is not properly managed, it will seriously impact the economics of the project through required water treatment and disposal costs. However, the properly management of the produced water can lead to significant cost reduction and improve revenue from hydrocarbon production.
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