Slick Water Fracking -- Terminology Explained

After reaching total depth, and noting a natural gas show and an oil show in two different formations in a Kansas exploratory well, it was noted that drilling would be followed by a "massive Slick Water frac."

A couple of notes. First, a definition of this type of fracture stimulation:

Slickwater or slick water fracturing is a method or system of hydro-fracturing which involves adding chemicals to water to increase the fluid flow. Fluid can be pumped down the well-bore as fast as 100 bbl/min. to fracture the shale. Without using slickwater the top speed of pumping is around 60 bbl/min. -- Wikimarcellus

Water fracs generate fractures by injecting water with little or no proppant. “Slick-water fracs” employ linear gels or friction reducers to the water. Water fracs can generate similar or sometimes better production responses than large, conventional gel treatments. Microseismic imaging has shown that water fracs can create very long fractures. However, since water is less efficient than gels at carrying proppant, the effective fracture half-lengths may vary significantly, depending on proppant concentration and placement effectiveness. -- E&P.com.

The frac is described as "massive":

Black Hawk will perform a modern large scale frac procedure on the Sellers 'B' well designed for 103,500 lbs of proponent, which is 3 to 4 times the size of previous fracs targeting an area known to have Mississippi zone oil.

Comment, October 26, 2011: operators are routinely fracking with 3 million pounds of proppant (sand alone, or sand + ceramics) in the Bakken, Williston Basin, North Dakota. If this is accurate: 103,000 pounds of proponent (sic) it seems very, very small.