Temporal Changes in Microbial Community Composition and Geochemistry in Flowback and Produced Water from the Duvernay Formation

Abstract

Microbial activity in flowback and produced water (FPW) may negatively influence shale oil and gas extraction. However, the impacts of using recycled produced water (RPW) for subsequent fracturing jobs are not well-understood. In this study, we compared time series of FPW samples from two horizontally fractured wells drilled into the Duvernay Formation in Alberta, Canada; well 1 used RPW in the makeup of the hydraulic fracturing fluid (HFF) whereas well 2 did not. 16S rRNA gene sequencing and live/dead cell enumeration were used to track microbial communities. Within 20 days of flowback, total dissolved solids in well 1 and well 2 increased from 5310 mg/L and 288 mg/L to over 150,000 mg/L, and FPW temperatures increased from 20 and 9 °C to 77 and 71 °C, respectively. Alkyl dimethyl benzyl ammonium chloride (biocide) in well 2 decreased from 25 μg/L to below the detection limit of 0.5 μg/L. Cellular biomass decreased from ∼105 cells mL–1 to less than the detection limit of 105 cells mL–1 in both wells, and the community in the samples was initially diverse but rapidly shifted to become dominated by the sulfidogenic lineage Halanaerobium. Methanogens were detected at low relative abundance within archaea, with DNA concentrations in FPW after 20 days inadequate for sequencing. Comparing the two wells, the start time of Halanaerobium enrichment was considerably shortened in well 1 relative to well 2. Our results suggest that subsurface environmental parameters primarily drive the rapid enrichment of sulfidogenic and halotolerant bacteria and current recycling strategies can facilitate the growth of these bacteria, whereas biocide seems to be a less important factor in this shift.