American Oil and Gas Reporter - August 2020 - 55

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SpecialReport: Fracturing Technology
The metering conveyor also can be
operated in manual mode so that an operator can adjust speed and delivered
pounds per second to a variety of blender
operating systems and conditions. The
metering system also has cumulative volume counter functionality that can be
matched to emptied container volumes
to confirm mass balance of sand used
during the frac operation.
Commercial Execution
The final wet sand system design was
introduced in a field trial on a multiwell
pad that consisted of a total of 120 frac
stages designed with 500,000 pounds of
sand per stage, a 100-bpm slurry pump
rate, and a maximum concentration of
2.0 ppg of sand. Expectations were to
complete eight stages a day, and preparations were made to supply peak demand
up to 12 stages/day. At the peak rate, up
to 6 million pounds of wet sand would
have to be loaded, transported, discharged
and metered into the blender in a 24hour period.
Wet product was screened at the mine
through a 1/8-inch screen. Ultimately,
more than 4 million pounds of wet sand,
with a peak of 5.6 million pounds, consistently was delivered and metered to
the blender over the course of 15 days
(Figure 1). The wet sand system supplied
average load volumes and mine load
times similar to dry sand at ~46,000
pounds per load and 30 total minutes
spent at the loading facility (Figure 2).

In total, more than 60 million pounds
of wet sand were delivered and pumped
down hole while completing the 120
treatment stages. All identified aspects
of cohesion from the wet sand were
overcome and there were no interruptions
to frac operation or the logistical supply
chain. Sand inventory and equipment
downtime during the pad was zero. Consistent flow of the 4-8% moisture content
sand out of the container and onto the
delivery system was not interrupted, allowing the metering belt to continually
deliver accurate volumes to the blender
tub at all concentration levels.
If the frac sand supply chain could
be redesigned from scratch with the
knowledge that sand could be delivered
and metered to the blender without drying, the need for decanting, kilns and
upright storage would be eliminated.
The wet sand loading and delivery system
is a major step in that direction. In the
Permian and other basins with available
local sand resources, it eventually could
enable the concept of a portable "popup" mine to source sand from acceptable-quality deposits within or near the
acreage being drilled.
A significant amount of energy is required to dry sand from the washed pile,
which generally is supplied by natural
gas-fired kilns (an estimated 300,000400,000 Btus per ton of dried sand).
While natural gas is a very clean burning
fuel, there are still emissions from the
burners that require special air quality

TABLE 1
Frac Sand Drying Cost in Permian Basin
(Based on 2018 Consumption)
Output (tons/hour) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5,000
Total hours/year . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8,736
Yearly output (Tons of dried sand) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43.68 million tons
Utility cost . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $2.50/Mcf
Btu needed to dry 1 ton of sand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350,000
Btu per gallon of gasoline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114,000
Gasoline equivalent to 1 ton dry sand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 gallons
Price of gasoline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $2.50/gallon
Btus/hour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.75 Bcf
Btus/year . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.29 Tcf
Total gallons equivalent consumed/hour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15,351
Total gallons equivalent consumed/year . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134.1 million
Total cost (gasoline) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $335.3 million
Total cost (natural gas) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $38.2 million
U.S. average miles driven per car/year. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13,500
U.S. average miles per gallon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Gallons per car/year . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 540
Cars taken off the road (CO2 equivalent) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248,343

permitting. A well that requires 10,000
tons of sand using a natural gas fired kiln
will emit between 173-230 tons of carbon
dioxide to dry the product at the mine. If
all the sand consumed in 2018 in the
Permian Basin of West Texas (43 million
tons) was powered by natural gas fired
kilns, it would have emitted an estimated
744,133-992,177 tons of CO2. As shown
in Table 1, if that frac sand had bypassed
the drying process, it would have removed
the emissions equivalent of 160,000250,000 cars from the road in 2018.
Such a scenario is now conceivable to
reduce operational footprints, minimize
silica dust exposures, reduce emissions
and remove truck traffic from roads while
achieving delivery volume goals and lowering overall supply costs.
❒
IAN WILSON is manager of commodities and logistics at Ovintiv, formerly EnCana Corp. Before joining
the company in 2014, he spent six
years at Schlumberger in a variety of
roles in drilling and completion segments. Wilson has a B.S. in civil engineering from Colorado State University
and an M.E. in petroleum engineering
from Texas A&M University.
BRIAN DORFMAN is a Business
Development Manager at PropX. Before joining the company in 2016 he
worked in Business Development at
Halliburton. He has a B.S. in Finance
& Accounting from Georgetown University.
MATT OEHLER is regional business
development manager at PropX. Before
joining the company in 2017, he had
held a similar role for two years at
Gulfstream Services. Prior to that,
Oehler worked for Halliburton for 24
years in a variety of roles domestically
and internationally. He has a B.S. in
industrial engineering from Texas A&M
University.
KEVIN FISHER is president and
chief executive officer of PropX. Before
joining the company in 2016, he served
as president of Liberty Oilfield Services.
Fisher began his career in 1979 with
Halliburton, and subsequently served
at ProTechnics and Pinnacle Technologies. He has a B.S. in natural science and physics from Cameron University.
AUGUST 2020 55
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