proppant

Driven by a recovery in well completions and increased proppant loading per well, the market for raw fracturing sand is expected to grow by more than 4% annually through 2021, an industry research study says.

Early testing suggests that grains of proppant so small they need to be measured in microns can add production by slowing the notoriously rapid declines in unconventional wells.

Permian Basin producer Callon Petroleum is attributing its data-driven approach to a routine completions practice to improved proppant placement and higher oil production.

Carbo Ceramics is making big strides in the use of ceramic proppant.

Although Saudi Arabia has plenty of sand, it took some ingenuity by Saudi Aramco and Schlumberger to figure out how to use it effectively as proppant.

A new diagnostic technology that exclusively uses surface pressure data to map hydraulic fracturing in unconventional reservoirs has helped an operator to improve well completion designs in its Oklahoma field activities. 

Saudi Aramco has begun moving toward the production phase of its ambitious plan to develop its enormous hoard of unconventional gas resources.

A new proppant exhibits a neutrally wet surface, which does not have a preferential affinity for oil, gas, or water and therefore will not promote the preferential entrapment of any phase within the proppant pack.

A new unconventional proppant technology—a rod-shaped proppant—delivered 25% higher oil per net pay compared with offset wells using conventional proppant.

Understanding how much rock is being stimulated and propped is critical for unconventional producers. New imaging methods using electromagnetic energy or acoustic microemitters could represent a milestone in understanding what is left behind after fracturing.