American Oil and Gas Reporter - December 2021 - 76

SpecialReport: Stimulation & Completions
99.5% of the sand and other solids from
the production stream, " he says. " The almost
solids-free stream eliminates the
need to periodically shutdown a well to
clean sand from tanks and separators, as
well as the risk of damage to production
equipment and pipelines. "
Freeman attributes the separator's high
While some operators prefer casing buoyancy systems with glass barriers, others
continue to deploy ceramic flotation subs, NCS relates. Either material can offer reliable
performance, the company assures, noting that glass breaks into smaller fragments
and ceramic provides higher pressure ratings.
Since introducing its glass flotation
sub, NCS Multistage has achieved a 100%
success rate across more than 80 runs, he
reports. " Success in this context means
the glass seal stayed intact until the casing
had reached total depth, at which point
the operator successfully removed the
seal by applying a predetermined shear
pressure, " he says.
Even with modern materials science,
most glass flotation subs have a pressure
rating around 10,000 psi, which drops as
temperatures increase, Johnson notes. He
says this has prevented glass subs from
being used in particularly hot or deep
wells, including ones in the Eagle Ford
and Haynesville.
" For those wells, NCS continues to
recommend its original ceramic product,
which can achieve pressure ratings as
high as 12,500 psi, " Johnson says. " Even
in lower pressure applications, many operators
continue to choose ceramic subs
because they have proven successful in
such applications for nearly a decade. In
fact, NCS has completed more than 12,000
runs with ceramic flotation subs and can
count on one hand the number of times a
sub has failed to break as designed, or
has broken early. "
Even so, the company is looking for
ways to increase the temperature and
pressure ratings of the glass barrier. " In
the U.S. land market, most plays are
shallow enough that we can use glass
flotation subs, " Johnson acknowledges.
" However, as these products gain popularity
across the globe, we will encounter
76 THE AMERICAN OIL & GAS REPORTER
more situations that push NCS Multistage
to continue innovating beyond the limits
of today's products. "
Simplifying Flowback
To improve safety, reduce costs and
shrink their environmental footprints, operators
want to manage the sand that returns
during flowback with less equipment
and fewer people, reports Mark Freeman,
the president of EnerCorp. He recommends
using an integrated system that automates
sand management.
" The linchpin of our system is a cyclonic
separator that can remove 97.0%efficiency
to research that involved more
than a year of simulating fluid dynamics
inside cyclones in extreme detail. " When
we ran our simulations, we did not take
any shortcuts, " he describes. " Instead of
looking at single-phase flow to save time,
we modeled oil, water, gas and solids to
understand how different internal geometries
affect the sand separator's performance.
By adjusting those internals for
each application, we can achieve high
separation rates. "
Before developing the cyclonic separator,
EnerCorp generally managed sand using
two cyclones and a sand filter. " Now we
can condense these three pieces of equipment,
which are large enough that they
need to be transported on semis, into a
single cyclone. This consolidation cuts
transportation costs and emissions, as well
as the on-site footprint, " Freeman says.
The cyclone has a chamber at the top
that spins the fluid to separate the solids,
which drop into an accumulator. " When
this accumulator is almost full, we open
a valve and let the well's pressure push
the sand into an open-top tank, " Freeman
describes. " Opening and closing a valve
is a simple process to automate, especially
when we only need to do it on one cyclone. "
EnerCorp
reports that its sand cyclones reliably remove more than 97% of sand and
other solids from new wells' production streams. The company says this consistency
enables it to automate flowback management while reducing the risk of damage to
downstream equipment.

American Oil and Gas Reporter - December 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Oil and Gas Reporter - December 2021