American Oil and Gas Reporter - August 2023 - 84
SpecialReport: Hydraulic Frac Tech
Firms Advance Productivity, Logistics
By Colter Cookson
Hydraulic fracturing has come a long
way. From the blender to the pump, every
piece of equipment on a frac site has capabilities
that would have seemed amazing
a decade ago. Thanks to increasingly affordable
diagnostic techniques, digitized
data collection and powerful software,
completion teams can make real-time adjustments
to improve production and
squeeze downtime out of even the most
complicated jobs.
" The industry is past the point where
we worry about whether we can pump
20 or 22 hours a day, " suggests Akshay
Sagar, president of Universal Pressure
Pumping Inc. " We consistently achieve
that on multiple operations. The gains
for pumping more will be minimal, so
today, the key is keeping everything running
reliably and figuring out how to improve
well productivity. "
Well productivity has fallen short of
expectations for several operators, he
notes, especially on the second-tier acreage
that many acquired when private equitybacked
firms exited the market. " This has
helped the pendulum swing from an extreme
focus on cost to a healthy middle
ground where cost still plays a role, but
people want to invest in science and longterm
performance, " he assesses.
Sagar cites the example of sand. " Many
customers are beginning to ask how much
they should rely on in-basin sand, " he relates.
" In-basin sand costs less than proppant
that has to be imported, but the
higher-quality proppant sometimes justifies
its cost by improving well results. "
To help operators achieve higher returns,
Sagar says Universal has created
a solution engineering group that can
recommend changes to everything from
chemistry to perforation design and
treating pressure. " We have some amazing
people doing that work, " he says.
" We also have increased the number of
engineers we hire across the board
through a focused recruiting effort that
targets field engineers and other subject
matter experts. "
Consistency
While the investments in science are
paying off, Sagar indicates they must be
paired with high-quality assets that can
deliver consistent performance. By investing
in more effective training and
digitizing operations, he says Universal
is raising the bar across its fleet. " Two
years ago, we often would see wide variations
in performance from spread to
spread, with some delivering fantastic
results but others encountering challenges, "
he recalls. " Today, the performance is
great across our fleet. Day after day and
month after month, we are seeing very
high efficiencies. "
Sagar attributes that repeatability in
part to digital tools that provide more robust
feedback. " We can use software to
design an effective job, then monitor how
it performs in real time, " he reports. " We
also can look at the performance of our
equipment 24 hours a day to make sure
all the pumps and other components are
running as they should. "
Much of the monitoring now occurs
in operations centers that receive information
from the field and communicate
through Universal's satellite network,
Sagar says. " This gives us high-bandwidth
access to data and transmission,
allowing us to look at what is going on
and provide support when it's needed, "
he explains.
" We have a large push across the organization
to simplify and improve the
effectiveness of process control so that
everybody is doing work the right way, "
he continues. " As an example, we have
implemented a digital inspection process
using a third-party app that combines
video with artificial intelligence. The
videos go to a cloud-based platform for
analysis. If the AI notices that a blender
inspection or certain other tasks were
done incorrectly, it sends an alert to supervisors
so they can intervene. "
The digitization effort initially faced
resistance to change, but Sagar says the
misgivings have passed. " Today, we are
seeing enthusiastic adoption because people
have had a chance to see how it can make
their lives much easier, " he says. " They
get access to information quickly, without
inefficient extra steps and paperwork. "
Sagar says Universal is positioning
itself to automate pumping operations by
investing in its control platform architecture.
To ensure crews complete tasks the right way, Universal Pressure Pumping is implementing
digital tools that provide feedback and issue alerts when something seems off. The
company says these process control efforts work alongside training programs and
expanding automation to help its spreads deliver consistently high performance.
84 THE AMERICAN OIL & GAS REPORTER
" Automation will be a multistep process,
but we are already at a stage where can
move some people from the field to remote
operations centers, " he relates. " This improves
their quality of life and reduces
safety risks while allowing us to be more
flexible with our resources. "
American Oil and Gas Reporter - August 2023
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Oil and Gas Reporter - August 2023
Contents
American Oil and Gas Reporter - August 2023 - Intro
American Oil and Gas Reporter - August 2023 - Cover1
American Oil and Gas Reporter - August 2023 - Cover2
American Oil and Gas Reporter - August 2023 - 3
American Oil and Gas Reporter - August 2023 - 4
American Oil and Gas Reporter - August 2023 - Contents
American Oil and Gas Reporter - August 2023 - 6
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American Oil and Gas Reporter - August 2023 - Cover3
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