Originally published by Water in Oil newsletter, Issue 21 | May 15th, 2021
The joint venture aims to bring the Texas oil & gas and agricultural industries together in a mutually advantageous partnership similar to those seen in states like California and Wyoming.
Texan oil & gas company Echo Production has entered into a joint venture with chlorine dioxide provider PureLine for its CleanOnGreen initiative, which intends to provide treated produced water for non-edible crop production. The partnership signals the first step in a three-phase process that Echo CFO Tompie Hall says will result in a large beneficial reuse operation that includes multiple partners, including landowners and potentially other oil & gas operators and water midstream companies, as well as potential angel investors.
Hall told WiO that phase one will entail research on produced water to get it to a quality usable for growing crops such as cotton, hemp and castor oil plants. In a second phase, the company plans to roll out a 20-acre pilot during which several plants will planted and irrigated with the treated water. Following that, Echo aims to take its treatment technology and process to market. “We’re going to approach surface owners where we have our own production first regarding potential relationships,” Hall said. “The ideal partner would be a large agricultural producer that has a jack pump and production on his land now.” He added that near the end of phase two, Echo will reach out to various agencies about potentially entering into relationships such as public-private partnerships.
