A Very, Very Good Article on Fracking

A reader sent me a link to an excellent article on what the Bakken has taught us with regard to horizontal fracking.

I've said many, many times, the actual production coming out of the Bakken is not the big story. The big story is the fact that the Bakken was really one of the first opportunities where drillers broke the code on fracking, and the area continues to be a laboratory for developing, tweaking new technology and processes.

This is a great reference article. This is one link I hope does not get broken.

When the industry cracked the code on shales, it unlocked a wealth of unconventional resources, introduced new methods of drilling and completions, and made “fracturing” a household word.

Technology sparked the shale boom that began a decade ago in the dry gas reservoirs of the Barnett play, and then moved to Haynesville, Marcellus and others. Technology has continued to drive the current migration into the oil and liquids-rich Bakken and Eagle Ford plays, with new and extremely prolific basins continually being discovered.

However, along the winding road of shale production, the industry has learned many important lessons, not the least of which is this: Fracturing methods that work in one play may not yield success in another.

An example of just a bit of the article:

Baker Hughes’ LiteProp ultra-lightweight proppants (UWLPs) are neutrally buoyant, low-density materials that are slightly heavier than fresh water but considerably less dense than sand. They can be placed throughout the induced fracture to enhance production with greater conductivity.

“Slick-water fluids drop all the proppant to the bottom of the fractures. But, the ultra-lightweight proppants can be transported deeper into the reservoir prop fractures to greater vertical height and provide a better flow of hydrocarbons,” Mr Nelson explained.

Over the years, there has also been considerable development in completion architecture technologies, such as packer and sleeve configurations that can allow more zones to be isolated and treated, Mr Brannon noted.

“We used to do six or eight intervals per well, but with enhanced packer and sleeve systems, we can get as high as 40 intervals with telescoping port systems, extending the stage count even farther,” he said.