Fracturing/pressure pumping
Major increases in hydrocarbon production require both incremental and revolutionary technologies, industry leaders said during the SPE Hydraulic Fracturing Technology Conference.
Technology developers expect the tight-oil industry to give lightweight proppants another look after the Permian Basin’s biggest operator becomes an adopter.
In this case study, a geomechanics-based approach was used to create bridging and sealing at the fracture aperture using a biparticle self-degradable lost-circulation-fluid system.
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A hybrid downhole microseismic and microdeformation array was deployed to monitor fracture stimulation of a vertical coal-seam-gas (CSG) exploration well in the Gloucester Basin in New South Wales, Australia, to provide more-accurate insight into overall fracture height.
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The primary objective of this study is to address all known causes of productivity declines in unconventional shale gas formations with horizontal multifractured wells and to develop a fully coupled geomechanical/flow simulation model to simulate these production conditions.
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AFGlobal acquired the Axon pressure pump technology and product line from Amkin Technologies, a privately held oilfield equipment and technology developer.
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A Canadian startup company is developing a tool that uses solid rocket fuel to fracture vertical and horizontal wells without the use of water.
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To reduce the risk of wells getting “frac hits,” Permian Basin operators around Midland created an information exchange to give them notice of nearby fracturing.
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The boom in organic shale plays has revealed the critical need to size hydraulic-facture treatments correctly to achieve commercial success.
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A new line of specialized polycrystalline-diamond-compact bits have been tested in a series of Bakken wells. The bits’ integrated design allowed significant increases in drilling rate and the number of plugs drilled.
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Predictive models may help in the estimation of produced water volumes and the optimization of the locations for water recycling and disposal facilities to reduce truck hauling distances.
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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.
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Senior Research Scientist and SPE Distinguished Lecturer Ian Walton uses a semianalytic shale gas production model to show that natural fractures, contrary to the intuitive beliefs of many, do not contribute significantly to production.