Fracturing/pressure pumping
The multiyear contract with YPF includes electric pumping units and automated stimulation services.
Findings from two new SPE papers argue that the tight-rock sector needs to rethink longstanding assumptions about how hydraulic fractures form underground.
The newest recipient of the title SPE Legend of Hydraulic Fracturing talks about his career, the evolution of fracture stimulation, the development of increasingly useful simulators, and the future of the oil and gas industry. The honor was given at the 2026 SPE Hydraulic Fracturing Technology Conference and Exhibition.
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This paper presents recent results from a rigorous pilot-scale demonstration of natural-gas foam over a range of operating scenarios relevant to surface and bottomhole conditions with a variety of base-fluid mixtures.
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It won’t happen overnight, but a growing number of US shale players are taking important steps to bring more automation and stage-level decision making to the hydraulic fracturing process in tight reservoirs.
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The paper presents a case study of fracture interaction mitigation in a multistage horizontal stimulation of an offshore Black Sea well.
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This issue marks the debut of the Hydraulic Fracturing Operations feature in JPT. While hydraulic fracturing has long been a feature topic, this year, we are branching this major area of interest into both this feature and a Hydraulic Fracturing Modeling feature, which will appear in the November issue of the magazine.
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The authors have investigated the effect of perforation hole size, geometry, and shape on the coefficient-of-discharge value at ambient conditions and with backpressure, before and after sand erosion.
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A growing volume of free data and reports from US shale fracturing test sites is available, with more on the way.
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A major issue facing many production engineers is sand management. There are many obstacles equipment hasn’t historically been able to overcome and prolonged use is costly.
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A lot has been learned about shale, but those working to eke out oil from that ultratight rock still extract more value from data than physics.
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Schlumberger talks about options for improving remote operations of the many valves involved in the various activities occurring simultaneously on a multi-well pad.
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Shale producers have learned in recent years that their fracture plugs may not be holding up as well as they thought. One of the first operators to realize the true scope of the issue is now sharing the pathway it took to solving it.