American Oil and Gas Reporter - May 2019 - 56

SpecialReport: Gas Compression & Vapor Recovery
"The strong demand for compression
equipment and services we saw in 2018
very much continues in 2019 across all
segments," reports Levent Caglar, vice
president of sales for North America at
CSI Compressco LP. "We expect that
trend to continue in the near term."
The optimistic outlook throughout the
compression sector is reinforced by surging
multiphase production in shale plays from
the Marcellus in Pennsylvania and West
Virginia to the Niobrara in Colorado and
Wyoming and the Wolfcamp in Texas
and New Mexico. Combined, these plays
have transformed the United States into
a global energy exporting powerhouse,
Caglar notes.
"We are looking at U.S. production
getting higher and LNG export opportunities becoming more abundant," he
predicts. "We are pretty excited about
the future of our compression services
market in the lower-48 states and as
long as that trend continues, we will see
our business grow."
Pre-Designed Fields
CSI Compressco operates a contract
compression services fleet and an equipment sales line to build packages to customer specifications, and provide aftermarket services. Caglar says OEM equip-

ment lead times for compressors and natural gas engines are long, and oil and gas
companies have drilling programs in place
with predictable models about scheduled
well output and plans for centralized
compression pads, he says.
The emergence of gas compression
as a preferred artificial lift solution has
provided a major paradigm shift for CSI
Compressco in particular, Caglar says.
Companies pre-designing fields for gas
lift makes compression an integral part
of the production system instead of an
add-on, Caglar observes.
Last year, CSI Compressco deployed
new horsepower in excess of 92,000 hp
to its service fleet, mainly high horsepower
equipment targeted at existing customers
with a focus on gathering systems and
centralized gas lift.
"Our business model is changing," he
reports. "Once well production is given
to the gas lift, compression services equipment will remain in that field. Our equipment is used by customers producing
multiple wells from a centralized pad.
We are coming in and setting this larger
horsepower equipment a lot of times in
parallel to basically produce that field."
He adds that CSI's Compressco's compression services offerings range from
20 to 2,500 hp from wellhead, gas lift

In 2018, CSI Compressco added more than 92,000 horsepower to its service fleet, much
of it high horsepower equipment targeted at existing customers with a focus on gathering systems and centralized gas lift. According to the company, customers often use its
equipment for producing multiple wells from a centralized pad.

56 THE AMERICAN OIL & GAS REPORTER

and gas gathering applications.
When unconventional plays took off
with the Barnett Shale during the previous
decade, single well gas lift consisted
chiefly of small horsepower equipment-
often 200 hp units and below-but with
the more prolific, longer-lateral shale
wells, customers are now consistently
using compression equipment ranging
from 1,000 hp to 2,500 hp centralized
gas lift/gathering applications, Caglar
says. Now, service contract terms can go
far beyond the 12-month program for
some compression systems, he says.
"We are becoming more a part of the
oil and gas production infrastructure because a lot of times this larger equipment
installed on these pads tends to stay there
for years," he says. "It is a pretty big
shift in our industry."
Monitoring Data Points
Reliability is key for clients who push
to maximize production, Caglar says.
CSI Compressco is pushing for continuous improvement through remote monitoring of compression data points and
operating conditions to make better decisions on preventative maintenance and
to maximize uptime.
"We are looking at everything around
the compressor to help the customer
increase production," he describes. "The
name of the game now is liquids production and these new centralized stations are mission critical. We are aware
of everything happening on that site.
Gas lift has gained more popularity as
the preferred means of artificial lift for
the new shale field developments and
that is driving a lot of our larger horsepower needs."
More changes await as major oil and
gas companies return to U.S. fields and demand more sophisticated modeling throughout their upstream operations, he says.
"The majors want to monitor a lot
more data points on compression systems
as part of their infrastructure and they
are highly sophisticated customers," Caglar
explains. "They want to be able to analyze
trends and look at anything and everything
to maximize production. You have to be
ready with strong alignment of your resources to serve the needs of this space."

American Oil and Gas Reporter - May 2019

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