Companies Fracturing in the Bakken

This video has nothing to with this posting, but I was in the mood to listen to this song, and thought I might as well listen to it while posting.



The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Gene Pitney

Via a comment, I was asked about the names of companies fracturing and completing wells in the Bakken. "Completing" wells is way beyond what I understand in the oil industry, but I thought I might shed some light on the companies that do the fracturing.

For a moment that stopped me, but then this: the EPA asked nine companies to provide the EPA information on hydraulic fracture stimulation. From the EPA website:

On September 9, [2010,] EPA reached out to nine leading national and regional hydraulic fracturing service providers -- BJ Services; Complete Production Services; Halliburton; Key Energy Services; Patterson-UTI; RPC, Inc.; Schlumberger; Superior Well Services; and, Weatherford -- seeking information on the chemical composition of fluids used in the hydraulic fracturing process, data on the impacts of the chemicals on human health and the environment, standard operating procedures at their hydraulic fracturing sites and the locations of sites where fracturing has been conducted. 

Except for Halliburton, the companies have either fully complied with the September 9 request or made unconditional commitments to provide all the information on an expeditious schedule.

While visiting the Bakken the past two years, I have had the opportunity to drive out to the newly expanded Halliburton site east of Williston, as well as the Sanjel operation.  Schlumberger has been in Williston ever since I was old enough to spell "oil."  (I never learned to spell "fracturing" while going to school in Williston.)

As far as I know, those are the big three for fracturing wells in the Bakken: Schlumberger, Halliburton, and Sanjel.

Sanjel: According to one of dozens of stories one can find on the internet regarding Sanjel:

Sanjel Corporation is a privately-owned, Canadian-based international oilfield service company with over two and a half decades of industry experience. As a major competitor in the global oil and gas market and the largest  privately-owned oilfield service company in Canada, Sanjel offers five specialized service lines in acidizing, cementing, coiled tubuing, fracturing and nitrogen - each complete with its own broad range of specialized products and custom-designed and manufactured equipment.

Halliburton:

Halliburton provides a "Fracturing 101" site, as well as a new site listing its fracturing fluids components. I do not know how long this particular site has been up, but Halliburton reminded folks of this website in a press release today (November 16, 2010). Halliburton is headquartered in Houston, TX. If you use the search engine at this blog site you can find how big a player Halliburton is in the Bakken. I have talked about it quite extensively since the beginning of this blog. In fact, its $20 million expansion project east of Williston was one of the reasons I got excited about starting and maintaining the blog.

Schlumberger:

It seems "everyone" has heard of Halliburton but no one has heard of Schlumberger (or how to pronounce it). For me it was just the opposite. I never heard of Halliburton while growing up in Williston, but I knew about Schlumberger from the time I could spell "oil." See above. It is interesting how much notoriety Halliburton seems to attract despite being so much smaller than Halliburton. Halliburton has a $32 billion market cap; Schlumberger is just under $100 billion (had it not been a down day for the market today, SLB probably would have been over $100 billion again, in market cap). When it comes to well completion, SLB is the 800-pound gorilla. A good place to start with Schlumberger, fracturing and well completion is here. Along with Halliburton, Schlumberger Limited is based in Houston, TX.

Baker Hughes:

BHI provides technological support for drillers who require fracture stimulation. They provide impartial advice to drillers contracting other companies actually doing the fracturing. BHI also provides computer modeling for "what-if" scenarios. I see BHI as providing the geeks and the software while others provide the manpower, proppants, trucks, and industrial equipment for hydraulic fracturing.

There are probably dozens of smaller companies that are well-known in other regions or other countries, such as Calfrac Well Services Ltd, a Canadian private company that offers fracture stimulation. But I certainly don't see their names in the Bakken. If I do, I will bring them to your attention.