Universal Change: US Pressure Pumper’s Modernization Effort Highlights Growing Role of Automation and Low-Carbon Tech
Authors: Jacobs Trent 
Published: June 2023

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Houston-based Universal Pressure Pumping is in the midst of a year’s long modernization effort that has touched every major aspect of daily operations. The sweeping effort by the service provider, a subsidiary of drilling contractor Patterson-UTI, comes in response to the escalating demands that have been placed on North American pressure pumpers in recent years.

Horsepower availability remains the heart of their offering. But increasingly, even mid-sized service providers such as Universal have assumed additional responsibilities that have progressively made them into software developers, chemical analyzers, and now low-carbon solution providers.

Along these lines, Universal’s most important ongoing initiative is a field test of its first semiautomated hydraulic fracturing spread in the gas-rich Appalachian Basin with an undisclosed operator. The pilot is helping to bring Universal in line with some of its rivals in the US sector that have already adopted various layers of automated controls in recent years.

The big driver behind the trend comes down to the fact that unlike human operators, software doesn’t get distracted on a busy job site and can make split-second decisions on how to distribute horsepower based on demand and each individual pump’s operating thresholds.

The ultimate prize Universal wants from automation is to use as much natural gas as it can to run its dual-fuel units. It is a bid to boost the competitiveness of these pumping units which already offer operators a way to simultaneously lower their fuel spend and emissions footprint over strictly diesel-powered pumps.

With all this underway, Universal has also been occupied with the design of a new software platform to track the status of its fleet of about a dozen frac spreads that outside of the Appalachian region operate in shale plays across Texas.

Yet another big focus area for the service provider has been on the testing and screening of friction reducers for operators. Within the US especially, friction reducers have in recent years become a staple ingredient in most fracturing fluid recipes but their use also runs the risk of incompatibility issues that can cause problems during the pumping job.

More on the company’s technology roadmap and progress follows.

Automating for Fuel Efficiency

Universal’s dual-fuel units represent more than two-thirds of the firm’s 350-strong fleet and as of last year have resulted in the displacement of more than 18.5 million gallons of diesel fuel.

This translates to an average gas substitution rate of a respectable 40%. However, Jeff Beach, the former vice president of technology and now vice president of sales and marketing for Universal, explained that if the automation push which began during “the depths of COVID” is successful, it will lift that figure by at least a few more points.

“Our best crews with the best tribal knowledge and working culture can individually optimize the units to a substitution rate in the high 30 percentile to low 40 percentile range. By automating the process, that will allow us to operate slightly better than our best crews—but during every hour of every day of every shift,” said Beach.