The oil and gas service industry is driven by efficiency demands, versatility in fluid systems, government regulation, environmental sensitivity, and reservoir enhancement challenges. In response, service companies are rapidly developing innovations and technology in this changing environment.

Recent industry challenges and trends are driving a new breed of innovations and solutions, especially within the hydraulic fracturing service sector. Such trends can be categorized into four attributes – efficiency, versatility, environment, and reservoir brand service. The trend involves innovations that boost efficiency gains, provide operational versatility, protect the environment, and provide enhanced reservoir performance. Efficiency gains are being achieved in hydraulic fracturing through a number of innovations, including the adoption of factory-type processes such as

  • Zipper fracs, where multiple wells on the same drilling pad are perforated and hydraulically fraced in alternating operations where fracing pressure on one well is maintained while another well is being perforated. This process increases hydraulic fracturing efficiency, increases estimated ultimate recovery, decreases cost per boe, and reduces the environmental footprint;
  • Increased usage of pad drilling and well manufacturing concepts;
  • Enhancements in product logistics and bulk supply, like proppant, centralized water sourcing, and installment of onsite bulk chemical delivery systems; and
  • Enhancements in pump system longevity involving improvement in maintenance, fluid end design, and lubrication systems.
Industry trends set stage for innovation

Nabors’ LGS-150L brand gel provides better prop-pant suspension than traditional linear guar gels. More proppant grains remain suspended in the fluid compared to guar at equivalent design loadings. (Image courtesy of Nabors Completion & Production Services Co.)

Hydraulic fracturing fluids that work across a wide range of conditions drive the need for industry innovations in fluid system versatility. The development of new products and fluids that are less sensitive to source waters enables the reuse of flowback waters and the use of atypical sources of frac waters, such as saline groundwater and acid-mine drainage.

Significant recent innovations are meeting growing industry needs. These include

  • Onsite water testing and analysis;
  • Sequential flowback analysis;
  • Pre-frac fluid optimization; and
  • The use of additives that eliminate the effects of problem ions and elements.

Diversity of reservoir types within shale plays has driven the need to develop fluid systems that function well in both gas- and oil-bearing zones.

Driven by public perception and a lack of understanding, environmental issues are perhaps the most challenging to overcome. As an industry, hydraulic fracturing service providers are providing information to the public to a degree unlike anything the industry has previously experienced. Hydraulic fracturing providers have responded to the growing demands for chemical ingredient disclosures, silica emissions reduction, onsite spill protection, engine emission reduction, and shallow gas migration, among others. Nabors Completion & Production Services Co. has been making investments in technologies and proprietary information systems to address these new industry trends. Examples include fugitive silica capture and the SUPER ChemDAT chemical disclosure system. Product examples include green products such as nonhazardous, high-temperature gel breakers; crosslinked gels that tolerate a wide range of brines and water sources; and synthetic guar alternatives.

Increasing demand for enhanced reservoir performance has placed focus on creating fluid systems that reduce formation and conductivity damage. Sequential flowback analysis has proven to be a valuable process innovation involving chemical “fingerprinting” of the geochemical signature of flowback waters following hydraulic fracturing operations. This process enables enhancement in reservoir-compatible additives and fluids to mitigate damaging precipitates and assists in optimization of fluid designs in a range of fluid types, allowing the reuse of flowback waters without the need for expensive water treatment.