Finally, I can post what I thought about proppants, but confusing well files earlier made me unsure.
Once wells are completed, the operator provides data to the NDIC including data regarding fracking. It seems to me that the reporting has been uneven, but tonight I see that the file reports for two wells on a pad northwest of Williston answered my question.
It seemed that some reports to the NDIC suggested that when fracking, some companies did not include sand as proppant; sand was sand and ceramic proppant was the proppant. I was probably reading the reports incorrectly but it was confusing. It's possible the reporting was uneven to make it difficult to determine exactly how much ceramic proppant was used.
Tonight, two nice reports by BEXP made it very clear that in the box labeled "Proppants" the box is to include sand plus ceramic proppants. That's what I would have thought, but there have been reports when the amount of sand plus the amount of ceramic proppants did not add up to total proppant used.
This probably sounds confusing, but these two BEXP file reports will clear it up.
On well with file # 19584, the Dave Arnson 8-5 1H well, was fracked with 32 stages, using a total of 3,796,700 pounds of proppant of which 1,467,840 pounds was sand; the rest was ceramic.
On well with file # 19829, the O'Neill 17-20 1H well, was fracked with 33 stages, using a total of 4,103,460 pounds of proppant of which 1,616,380 pounds was sand; the rest was ceramic.
This was pretty basic stuff, and I always thought sand was classified as proppant, but as noted, some file reports made it unclear, suggesting some companies were reporting only the ceramic as proppant, assuming that, of course, sand was used in the mix.
By the way, just for the record, here are the wells:
- 19584, 2,192, BEXP, Dave Arnson 8-5 1H, t5/24/11; cumulative: 47,656 bbls
- 19829, 2,965, BEXP, O'Neill 17-20 1H, t5/29/11; cumulative: 51,730 bbls
Rumors from roughnecks in the field suggest that ceramic proppants, though much more expensive, are not any better than sand. If true, it suggests that other rumors suggesting that lack of fracking sand is part of the reason for the fracking backlog. If ceramic proppants cost four times more than sand, and isn't much better, it doesn't make sense to use so much ceramic proppant -- unless the operators are unable to get enough sand.
If this turns out to be true, maybe someday, the Chinese will be shipping fracking sand to the US rather than ceramic proppants (assuming the Chinese have fracking sand).
Bruce,
ReplyDeleteSand is considered a proppant and actually was the first generation of proppants. The second was ceramic and resin coated sand. It depends on what you are classifying as "better". For instance the conductivity and permeability of ceramic proppants is almost always better than regular sand. Although, there are some sands that perform better that lightweight ceramics. Ceramics tend to weigh more than sands so it takes a more viscous fluid to transport the ceramic further into the fracture and the fluid can cause more damage to the proppant pack than if a lighter fluid was used on sand. There is much to consider when evaluating a proppant even more than what i discussed here. Hope this helps
This helps immensely. I'm learning as I go along. I made a decision not to change my earlier posts (with some exceptions) even though I made mistakes. It provides archival data points to see how my education has evolved. In addition, my basic errors have resulted in a lot of nice folks taking time to explain things.
ReplyDeleteThe dates of the posts are very important.
Thank you for taking time to comment.
Anonymous, I am not sure you are right on the viscosity vs. ceramics point. See CARBO's website post here: http://www.carboceramics.com/en/rel/41/ They're suggesting the shortage of Guar Gum, which is used to increase fracking fluid viscosity, benefits manufacturers of ceramic proppant, since ceramics can be used in slickwater fluids, which work better with lower-diameter proppant - i.e. ceramics.
ReplyDelete