Analysis of US Hydraulic Fracturing Fluid System and Proppant Trends

Abstract

Building upon the analysis contained in a related paper (SPE-163875), "Analysis of U.S. Hydraulic Fracturing Design Trends," presented at the 2013 SPE Hydraulic Fracturing Technology Conference, this paper will provide a more comprehensive and robust analysis of hydraulic fracturing fluid systems and proppant trends across major shale plays in the United States between 2011 and the first half of 2013. This paper will present key insights gleaned from the categorization and analysis of over 55,000 hydraulic fracturing treatments, collected from FracFocus.org. FracFocus.org is a website established in early 2011 with a centralized registry to provide hydraulic fracturing chemical disclosures across the United States. The website provides the data for the analysis presented in this paper, consisting of chemical disclosure records for nearly 55,000 hydraulically fractured wells. The data set includes information on all chemicals and proppants, fracture date, TVD, water volume, production type. We have collected all available data, identified key constituent materials, and classified each treatment according to a widely used set of frac type categories. This paper investigates changes in key hydraulic fracturing technical parameters at the both the aggregate US level and regional level between 2011 and the first half of 2013. The analysis identifies changes over time in frac type, using the broad categories of conventional, water frac, hybrid, energized, etc. The paper also includes analysis on proppant trends, including usage rates for key proppant types (sand, resin-coated sand, and ceramics) and proppant loading trends. To date, most knowledge of aggregate consumption trends on hydraulic fracturing chemicals and proppant is anecdotal and based on the direct experience of operators or service companies. This paper provides a more rigorous quantitative perspective on hydraulic fracturing fluid trends in the United States between 2011 and the first half of 2013.

WellExplorer: an integrative resource linking hydraulic fracturing chemicals with hormonal pathways and geographic location

“…The FracFocus online database offers several files available for download that contain up to 45 fields about hydraulic fracturing wells across the USA. FracFocus.org serves as a central registry for hydraulic fracturing chemical disclosures in the USA ( 24 ). However, it does not contain information regarding the biological action of the chemicals used in the fluids.…”

pH-responsive viscoelastic supramolecular viscosifiers based on dynamic complexation of zwitterionic octadecylamidopropyl betaine and triamine for hydraulic fracturing applications

“…Proppant carrying capacity is one of the most critical metrics used to evaluate the potential and efficiency of fracturing uids. 82,83 Accordingly, we conducted sand settling studies to determine how the DBCs perform in terms of their ability to transport proppant at varying pH, temperature, and salinity conditions. Fig.…”

Optimization of Chock Valves for Fracture Clean-up in Tight Gas Condensate Reservoirs

“…20 If a fracture is closed as the fracture width approaches the width of proppants, the proppants will be a monolayer distributed inside the fracture. As shown in Figure 5, the chock size can be larger for 16 mesh of proppants.…”