I was perusing Murray Roth’s recent presentation “Unconventional Oil and Gas: Implications for Global Field Development” and it made a pretty bold statement that I figured was worthy of discussion all on its own.
Read more What is the greatest driver of oilfield innovation and value in the 21st Century? Sand. Without sand, or more generally proppant, there is no hydraulic fracturing, without hydraulic fracturing there is no opening of tight oil and gas plays, there is no economic advantage to horizontal drilling, there is no rise of pad drilling. Proppant is “sand or similar particulate material suspended in water or other fluid and used in hydraulic fracturing (fracking) to keep fissures open.” (from Wiktionary) Although hydraulic fracturing was first performed in 1947 (in Kansas, using sand from the Arkansas river), wide-spread experimentation didn’t occur until the Barnett Shale play in the 80s, and usage has exploded in the first decade of this century. Initially, proppant was simply sand, but over time other materials have been incorporated. There are resin-coated sands, ceramic-coated sands, and now we have proppant composed of sintered (powdered) bauxite – tiny manufactured rocks! By integrating these other materials into the proppant we are able to vary some key properties: By adjusting these properties we can create the optimum pathways for the extraction of hydrocarbons. Some important measured qualities of proppant are: Downholetrader.com has a variety of fracking sands up for trade; all pretty much at least a couple of pennies per pound. This week, 20/40 Mesh Finished Black Gold Sand with a 7k crush in North Dakota is going for $.13/lb.! A lot. The first experiments in the 1940s used around 150 pounds of sand, but now it’s around 5 million pounds per well. So, if you are in the Eagle Ford and are looking for a 20/40 mesh and your buddies are all speaking highly of “Antioch Sand” you can expect to spend $.056 * 5,000,000 = $280,000 on sand! And that means the proppant industry is definitely up and to the right – 57 billion lbs in 2012 = $BIG! Also, notice the market is 80% sand with the other 20 percent split between resin coating and ceramics. With competitive price and timely delivery, AnYiCheng sincerely hope to be your supplier and partner. I am not really qualified to tell you that, but I will say that I have been learning a lot about how proppants are being used in the field by looking at fracfocus.org. Logistics. These are huge quantities of sand that need to be shipped to your well site when you’re ready for them – you don’t have room to store them, and can’t risk contamination. And even if it’s just across Texas, distances can be quite long. If you’re thinking about proppant business, you need to know where the rigs are, because as the rigs move, so will the proppant trucks soon thereafter. If you decide to go on a field trip and visit one of your favorite operators to see how they are using proppant, you can save valuable windshield time with the brand new Rigs Mobile app for the iPhone. What do you think? What types of proppant are you seeing in your operations? Leave a comment below.What is proppant?
A brief history of sand
Source: https://images.sdsmt.edu/learn/speakerpresentations/Kullman.pdfProperties of proper proppant
How much will that sand cost me?
Source: https://downholetrader.com/#2040How much will I need?
Source: https://www.cadreproppants.com/files/shaletech_cadreproppants_new.pdfThat’s great, but what should I use for my well?
Source: FracFocus.orgThe elephant in the room
Final Thoughts
Your Turn
Figure 1. A sand-type hydraulic fracturing proppant called frac sand.
Proppant is a gritty material with uniformly sized particles that is mixed in with fracturing fluid during the hydraulic fracturing (fracking) process to hold open fractures made in the ground. There are a variety of different types of proppant, including naturally occurring sand and man-made proppants. Man made proppants include materials such as resin-coated sand or strong ceramic materials. Proppants come in a variety of different sizes and spherical shapes for a variety of different situations.[2]
Recently, demand for proppants has increased as oil and natural gas wells are being made to yield more oil and gas using hydraulic fracturing. One job can require a few thousand tons of this proppant material.[3]
Types
There are several different types of materials used as proppant. The first of these types is known as frac sand, and is simply a high-purity quartz sand with durable, round grains. As a result of its strength it is crush-resistant, and thus is effective as propping open cracks made in the ground during the hydraulic fracturing process. Most of this sand is made from high purity sandstone.[3] Although natural, this frac sand is not used directly out of the ground, rather it requires processing. The processing process involves washing to remove particles that are too small, and then a screening process to ensure the remaining grains are the correct size.
Other types of proppant materials include resin-coated sand and ceramic proppants. Resin-coated sand is simply sand that is coated in a resin material to smooth the surface of the sand and make the shape more uniform. Along with this, coating the sand in resin increases its strength, making it more desirable as a proppant. Finally, ceramic proppants are the most uniform in shape and the strongest of the proppants as their manufacturing is entirely controlled. The uniform shape of this type of proppant ensures that there is more space for the oil and gas to flow through the proppant material and out of the well.[4]
Size and Shape
Proppants come in a variety of different grain sizes, as well as different shapes. The size and shape of a proppant is important as it influences the final permeability in the induced fracture. Frac sand, or naturally occurring sand-type proppant is generally irregular in shape, although this depends on the source. Compared to other types of proppants it has a low strength and packs together closely in fractures, resulting in a lower permeability when compared to other proppant types. Resin-coated sand is more smooth and round in shape, and is stronger than traditional frac sand. As a result of this shape and texture, resin-coated sand does not pack as closely together and thus is more permeable than frac sand. Finally, ceramic proppant is the most uniform shaped and most round proppant. It has a high strength, and as a result of its properties it is also very permeable, allowing trapped oil or natural gas to flow easily out of the fractures.[5]
References
For more information, please visit oil and gas drilling proppant.