In response to a 88x increase since 2018 in >3 Richter scale earthquakes in the Permian, Texas regulators are imposing restrictions that can shut-down or sharply curtail the volumes of certain saltwater injection wells (“SWDs”). As a result, transportation costs to ever more distant and less seismicity-dangerous SWDs could lead West Texas Shale E+P costs to increase by $207mn (currently contemplated curtailments/shutdowns) and as much as $763mn (assuming curtailments and shut-downs of all of the SWDs in the earthquake-prone areas). As an enhanced evaporation company, EcoVAP carries no seismicity risk, and is generally able to evaporate with 1/40th the land footprint and lower costs than conventional evaporation. Moreover, because EcoVAP’s Evaporation Matrices are fully scalable to any wastewater disposal need, they can be located at the well-head or tank battery, thus implying no trucking. EcoVAP already operates one such facility in the Eagle Ford (See Case Study: https://www.ecovap.com/case-studies/oil-gas-operation)

The attached report “The Carbon Footprint of Water” estimates the water sector consumes a whopping 13% of all electricity in the US and is responsible for 5% of all US carbon emissions. Moreover, these figures are expected to rise dramatically given that new water supplies must come from even more energy-demanding sources; i.e., pumping through longer aqueducts and from deeper aquifers, and from desalination and other treatments for reuse. By contrast, EcoVAP’s biomimcry-based technology uses practically no electricity, thus implying negligible CO2 footprint, and our “Matrices” can also be located at the point where the wastewater is generated, thus avoiding the CO2 from trucking.

California is facing “massive” groundwater contamination due to the practice of dumping wastewater into "percolation pits," being the last state in the US that allows dumping into these unlined ponds. The amount of water being disposed of this way is increasing rapidly: in 2019, there was nearly 3 billion barrels of produced water generated by the oil/gas sector, or roughly 18 barrels per barrel of oil produced, having more than doubled from the 8bbls per barrel of oil registered 20 years ago. There are 1,850 produced water ponds in California’s Tulare Basin alone, and to date regulators and corporates have generally concluded that the cost of the clean-up of legacy contamination is excessive - even while the dumping of 16bbls/year into the percolation ponds continues. These percolation ponds and “spray-fields” allow toxins to either seep into underground aquifers or flow into rivers and aqueducts when it rains. In one case, the carcinogen benzene was found at 45x the safety limit for drinking water.