ConocoPhillips

ConocoPhillips is a U.S. exploration and production company with oil and natural gas operations in unconventional, conventional, offshore, LNG, and oil-sands projects. The company uses water in every aspect of its hydraulic-fracturing, produced-water, steam-assisted-recovery, and drilling activities. How the company manages the water it uses, reuses, disposes of, and is impacted by local water stress is a key part of its overall environmental performance.

ConocoPhillips is making greater use of recycled produced water. In 2024, 69% of the water used for hydraulic fracturing of new wells in the Permian Basin came from recycled produced water. This work to increase reuse helps minimize local freshwater use in this water-stressed area and other locations. The company also collaborates with other operators on testing the potential to treat and reuse more produced water.

At its Montney operations in Canada, ConocoPhillips increased produced-water storage capacity by converting freshwater dams into engineered containment ponds to make reuse easier. Because more water is reused and less needs to be disposed of, this change contributes to the company's conservation efforts. At its Surmont oil-sands operation, steam-assisted recovery is largely dependent on recycled produced water and lower-quality groundwater, since the technology requires less freshwater. This means that since 2020, 1.86 million cubic meters of licensed water annually could be returned to Alberta. Even part of the treated camp wastewater in Alaska can be reused for drilling mud.

The company uses water-risk screening tools such as WRI Aqueduct, as well as its own local water-supply-and-demand models. At its Qatar Global Water Sustainability Center, the company researches techniques for reuse of produced water, desalination, and resource recovery, as well as ways to eliminate liquid waste altogether. Unfortunately, the latest data shows an increase in total freshwater withdrawals and consumption compared with the prior period, signaling that efficiencies at the sites have not yet translated to reductions in company-wide consumption.