Technology Focus: Hydraulic Fracturing Operations (June 2023)
Authors: Pooniwala Shahvir 
Published: July 2023

With the global normalization of economies over the past 2 years after the pandemic, the demand for energy has only been increasing, and all forecasts show this demand will continue to grow. In light of the current geopolitical situation globally, balancing the energy trilemma (ensuring energy security, energy equity, and environmental sustainability) is a key global challenge.

With the ever-increasing energy demand, oil and gas remains a major component within the energy mix to address this challenge and to aid in satisfying the growing demand. Hydraulic fracturing continues to be the main technology differentiator that enables enhancing recovery from both green- and brownfield reservoirs globally.

During the past few years, the industry has made great strides in reducing carbon emissions through the deployment of new technologies in fracturing equipment manufacturing, including electric, hybrid, and turbine-driven fracturing equipment spreads. We have also seen the application of automation and emissions monitoring being widely adopted throughout the industry in an effort to lower the operational carbon footprint.

Fracture monitoring to optimize fluid volumes and designs remains a critical area of development. Research is ongoing with the focus on combining different monitoring technologies including tracers, fiber optics, downhole cameras, and microseismic monitoring. There also have been innovations in using surface data to develop cost-effective solutions to monitor fracture-geometry propagation. Nanotracers and low-cost disposable fiber-optic cables have been areas that have seen increasing deployments within the monitoring realm.

Cluster efficiency and stage spacing is being optimized in basins globally by studying perforation erosion, fracture propagation, and performance between various perforation strategies using different gun configurations in both single clusters and multiple clusters including extreme-limited-entry applications. We have seen improvements in the pressure ratings of dissolvable and flow-through plugs with the aim of aiding in improving turnaround efficiency in plug-and-perf wells. Multistage hardware has seen enhancements with new completion technologies such as cemented ball-drop multistage fracturing systems and multistage openhole systems with sand-screens that require minimum intervention being developed and deployed.

Globally, we have observed increasing application of lessons learned to revamp older technologies and fracturing concepts such as the use of crosslinked gels, energized fluid systems, and tip screenout designs.

In addition to conventional reservoirs, we also are seeing a growing application of stimulation and fracturing technologies being considered and deployed for geothermal applications.

The recent technological developments and deployments cement the fact that hydraulic fracturing will remain an important pillar to solving the world’s energy requirements in the years to come.

Recommended additional reading at OnePetro: www.onepetro.org.

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