Abanaki Corporation announced that several models in its industrial oil skimmer line are helping natural gas drillers to be environmentally responsible concerning the cleaning and disposal of fracking wastewater. The company's oil skimmer equipment is being used by multiple wastewater treatment plants to remove naturally occurring oil, as well as small amounts of oil-based chemical additives from frac water trucked in from drilling sites.

Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is the practice of breaking up shale formations with high pressure water. A typical fracture treatment normally consists of 98?99.5 percent water and sand while the balance is made up of chemical additives that depend on the components of the water and the shale formation being fractured. In order to fracture one well, millions of gallons of water are used. The concern has been what is being done with the 20?40 percent of flowback that picks up other contaminants as it returns to the surface.

Abanaki's oil skimmers provide an excellent option to wastewater treatment plants as they continue to clean up the millions of gallons of flowback from this widely used drilling technique. Oil skimmers work by making use of the differences in specific gravity and surface tension between oil and water. These physical characteristics allow the belts to attract oil and other floating hydrocarbon liquids from the surface of the frac fluid. Abanaki belt oil skimmers can be used in applications as deep as 100 feet and can be operated 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. An oil skimmer requires very little oversight, no maintenance, and is very cost effective due to low energy requirements.

Some drillers' normal practice has been to dispose of the flowback inground using deep injection wells. Since this type of disposal is not feasible in all areas, some drillers have been releasing their wastewater into the environment, a practice that has stopped in Pennsylvania after public concerns emerged over the waterways used as a source for drinking water. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is researching these concerns. Already it is clear that oil skimming is part of an environmentally responsible approach to the issue of fracking wastewater.