While hydraulic fracturing technology has advanced by leaps and bounds from the first operation in 1947, opportunities exist for improvement and optimization.
During the opening session at SPE’s 2025 Hydraulic Fracturing Technology Conference in The Woodlands, Texas, panelists said collaboration can help the industry overcome limitations, challenges, refine technologies to yield incremental improvements, and take advantage of the supercharging effect of combining two or more different technologies.
Because hydraulic fracturing operations are so critical to a well’s performance, it’s important to realize there’s only one shot to “do it right,” Craig Miley, senior manager of drilling and completions at Ovintiv, said during the “Optimizing Hydraulic Fracturing: A Strategic Approach to Speed, Cost, and Quality” opening plenary.
Over the years, the industry has gotten better at just that and doing so more efficiently. For example, Miley said, potential bottlenecks for fracturing operations include water delivery and infrastructure; sand delivery, storage, and handling; equipment expendables; and design limiters like antiquated thinking, stage architecture, and casing size versus friction.
More importantly, he noted, those limitations shift over time.
“Yesterday’s records become tomorrow’s averages,” he said, and predicted that in a decade, a 4-mile lateral might even be considered short
Right now, Ovintiv’s daily sand demand is 20 million pounds, he said, and the company opted to use a sand pile rather than boxes or silos to ensure a steady supply. The sand pile is located to allow easy exit for delivery trucks.
At the site, he said, there’s no line of trucks because “we're able to get sand off within a couple minutes.”
He said being open to taking ideas from other industries can help the industry eliminate limitations in perf operations. Ovintiv took a page out of the mining industry’s book when it came to sand delivery, and as a result, the company is not having operational bottleneck issues with sand.
Hess Corp. Chief Technology Officer Robert Fast said innovation is important, but the industry shouldn’t waste time reinventing the wheel.
The industry has tough problems to solve, and collaboration within companies and the industry as well as across industries can help it solve those challenges, he said. “Look at those inventing the wheel you need and adopt it.”
This has never been more important because the industry needs to deliver increasing amounts of quality energy at speed, Fast said.
Earlier generations in the oil patch developed technologies like horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, but it wasn’t until they were brought together that they led to the shale revolution.
“Why did it take 60 years to combine the two technologies to be able to achieve something truly differentiated?” Fast asked.
Combining two technologies creates combinatorial effects.
“One plus one does not equal two” but more like 10 or 15, as in the case of combining hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling, he said.
He added, there is potential for the combination of technologies that would increase the ultimate hydrocarbon recovery from reservoirs.
“15% ain’t good enough,” he said. “How do we keep getting higher and higher recoveries?”
Fast said the industry could combine improved and enhanced oil recovery with concepts like augmented drainage to generate higher production.
Miley said enhanced initial recovery is something Ovintiv is interested in.
And Liberty Resources President and CEO Mark Pearson said one of the industry’s major challenges is achieving better effectiveness in the far field at the lowest cost possible. Time-lapse data of field drainage would also be useful, he said.
On a related note, Fast said it would be valuable to have direct far-field measurements. Without direct data where it is desired,the company has sought to run available data through a physics-informed model that makes it better to optimize various systems.
Hess is seeing “these proxy models match physics models,” he said.
Improving the Bottom Line
Pearson said one of the ways companies can improve efficiency and production is through small improvements. “What are the incremental steps we can make in our operations” that will help move the industry or company toward goals such as better far-field drainage, he asked.
While improving cost and speed can impact a company’s top line, he said, making the well and completions more effective contributes more to the bottom line, representing the “biggest opportunity” in the industry.
And as the industry strives to improve its metrics, Pearson urged it to think more about the future.
It’s important to look beyond today's tasks and “not just be focused on doing the same thing tomorrow that we’re doing today,” he said.
“I think that's how we need to keep moving.”
When it comes to deploying new tech, Fast said each company should be willing to try new things because everyone can’t be a fast follower.
“If everybody’s a fast follower, nobody's first,” he said.
