Sometime in the midst of the three-day extravaganza known as the Permian Basin International Oil and Gas Show, the question arose, among a small circle of attendees, as to what exhibits or trends were the most impactful or talked-about among the hundreds on display.
And while this discussion was entirely informal and non-scientific, the answer came back, unanimously, that the biggest impact made at the show by any sector of the business was that made by those exhibitors who were the exponents of hydraulic fracturing.
This is not to say that other technologies or innovations were not also well represented and even dazzlingly impressive. But the fracturing crowd showed up with so much imposing new hardware, and so many fresh insights to share, that they could not fail to impress.
Our next question, then, was “What’s new in the hydraulic fracturing world?” And to get answers to that question, we were fortunate to find one of the top scientists in that field, Dr. David Holcomb, who had come to the show from Colorado, where he lives and works.
Holcomb is corporate scientific officer for FTS, formerly Frac Tech Services, a Fort Worth-based leader in fracturing, well stimulation, and other oilfield technologies and services.
Asked what has changed in the business, Holcomb, who has been at his profession for 42 years, was succinct: “The biggest change is how incredibly 24/7 this business is,” he said.
It’s more than just the sheer size of the fracturing and well stimulation sector, Holcomb indicated, though sheer size and volume has indeed been evident. “Everything’s bigger than it was 10 to 15 years ago,” he said. “Plus, we’re now doing 20, 30, 40, 50 frac jobs on the same well.”
Ten to 20 years ago, well stimulation was something that operators did long after the well had been drilled. “They would wait until the well declined, and then they would frac it,” Holcomb said. “Today the routine is to do a large frac job right away on a new well. Another reason why these frac jobs are so big is because they turn the bit and drill horizontally into the pay interval.”
It makes a huge difference. With a vertical well, the wellbore goes straight down through the payzone and later the zone is fracked. But when the bit is turned (creating the “heel” of the wellbore), the lateral bore is completely surrounded, usually, by pay zone, and thus the amount of wellbore that can be fracked is exponentially greater. Hence, larger, multi-stage frac jobs.
Holcomb noted that the public has a perception of hydraulic fracturing as some kind of brand-new innovation. “They don’t understand that we, the industry, have been in well stimulation and hydraulic fracturing since 1949. So it’s not new at all. But the size factor today is incredibly large.
Are there other changes?
“More automation. Computerization. It’s easier to work in the oil field now,” he said. Remarking on the larger frac jobs done today, Holcomb noted that so much of the process is handled by remote control. “It’s done from a van, and the information is sent back to headquarters by satellite. Remote control means much safer operation. You don’t have people standing on that equipment while it is running. Pressure is a hazard wherever it is. If you can get people away from those [high pressure] events, they are going to be much safer.”
Doing the larger frac jobs “takes millions of gallons of fluids and millions of pounds of proppant,” he said. “The predominant factor in a frac job, however, is the amount of horsepower that is applied. Our (FTS’s) trucks are between 2,000 and 2,500 horsepower and it may take as many as 20 or 30 trucks to do the job.
Holcomb was strongly in agreement with the idea that drillers have fewer dry holes today. “The risk of dry holes has—pardon the pun—dried up. We know where the pays are—we’re just connecting the dots and using fracturing technology to accelerate the rate of recovery of oil from these producing zones.
“Basically, the business of identifying where the reservoir is is much more precise,” he added. “We don’t have as much guesswork in completing these wells. We are virtually assured of success because of technological advances—mapping technology and micro-seismic technology, for instance. There’s also LWD—Logging While Drilling. That’s part of the preciseness that is going on today. We are able to get information about the formation about as fast as they drill it. In the past, of course, logging had to be done after the well was drilled. You can also get bits of information about the rock by observing how fast it [the bit] can turn in the rock. The bit is recording that information.
“Today, the technology is in the drill bit. We have what they call ‘smart bits.’ We can steer the bit to where it is supposed to go to get a better well.”
Another change, according to Holcomb, is the rate at which the slurry (the mixture of water, sand, and proppants, as well as frac fluids or other chemicals) are pumped into the hole. “In the old days, those would be pumped at the rate of 25 or 30 barrels a minute. Back then, 100 barrels was a very high rate. Today, they pump it at 100 to 200 barrels a minute, at pressures anywhere between 5,000 and 15,000 psi.”
As corporate science officer, Holcomb is charged with ensuring that FTS always applies the best technology possible.
Asked how the future looks for the industry, Holcomb allowed that, where well stimulation is concerned, “Competition will be high for a while because a lot of people chose to get into this industry at the last minute. Anytime there is an overabundance of equipment to do the same job, there are some complications. We will have issues of pricing and cost, but everybody who does business using the newest technologies should be successful.
Born in Kermit, raised in Odessa, Holcomb has been coming to the PBIOS exposition since he was a kid. He worked in this region for a decade, in the field of well stimulation, before advancing to other responsibilities in other regions.
“The last oil show, two years ago, was not as good as this one,” Holcomb said. “That one was in 2010, and we were still coming out of a slow period that ended in around 2009. This is the biggest oil show I have ever seen, except for the boom years of the early ’80s.”
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Photo Captions:
FTS International Field Engineer Nnaemeka Nzedinma helps supervise the completion process from the technical control van (TCV) at a well site near Midland, Texas. Used with permission from FTS International.
FTS International (FTSI) Director of Corporate Communications Pamela Percival presented a corporate donation to United Way of Odessa Executive Director Tom Pursel during the Permian Basin International Oil Show in October. FTSI currently employs almost 300 people at its Odessa Operations District.