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Page added on December 13, 2016
Unconventional Approach To Conventional Pressure Pumping
Increasing environmental regulatory pressures to reduce emissions and noise have operators looking for unconventional solutions to provide relief. Technology advancements are addressing these issues in a cost-effective and efficient manner in this lower-for-longer market. One solution is through the use of next-generation electric-powered hydraulic fracturing systems.
As a full service electric-hydraulic fracturing company, Evolution Well Services offers its multipatented processes to generate electrical power using a mobile gas-turbine generator to power electrically driven process equipment. The electric power is generated onsite using 100% natural gas, be it from the field pipeline, CNG or LNG. It is the system’s ability to use multiple sources of natural gas that offers cost savings to E&P companies in completions operations.
The economics associated with burning field gas as the fuel to power the process equipment delivers 95% fuel cost savings in comparison to diesel fuel.
Using natural gas to fuel a turbine generator eliminates the environmental and personnel risks associated with diesel use.
Additionally, using natural gas to fuel a turbine generator eliminates the environmental and personnel risks associated with diesel use. Evolution’s fleet emissions are far below the Environmental Protection Agency Tier IV standards for all categories of nitrogen oxides, CO2, hydrocarbon and particulate matter.
Measured noise levels for conventional fracturing fleets are typically in the +/-115 dB range. Evolution’s measured noise levels reside in the +/-80 dB range, providing the opportunity to work within highly regulated and residential areas.
System technology
The company operates a General Electric TM2500+ turbine generator package that produces up to 32 MW of electric power for the complete fracturing fleet. Monitoring and operation of the electric motors that drive the process equipment are controlled remotely, providing exact measurement and control over the entire system.
The company was granted exclusivity by General Electric to be the packager of its TM2500 line of turbine engines into Evolution’s mobile hydraulic fracturing power generation transport system. In addition, the company holds multiple patents for its custom turbine generator transport, dual-pump transport and dual-blender transport designs.
The fracture pump transports are configured to provide 5,000 hhp and 6,000 hhp per transport, while the dual blender has a designed 240 bbl/m capacity (120 bbl/m each side) that unitizes a primary and secondary blender onto a single transport. These blenders can be used in unison or independently and can be configured for slipstream and conventional pumping applications. The blenders are equipped with ambidextrous suction and discharge capability, with blender tubs delivering up to 36,000 lb/min of proppant when used in unison.
Customized mobile chemical additive electric pump skids feature high, medium and low-rate capacities and are fully controlled from the control center transport and/or directly at the pump control unit. Each chemical additive pump skid can be manually moved adjacent to the respective chemical’s storage vessels. Unitized upon each of these skids is a flowmeter and a small reservoir for flush and pump cleanup purposes. The flexible positioning of these modular chemical additive pump skids allows reduced suction distance between the chemical storage and the chemical additive pump. This affords greater control and accuracy, reducing the amount of suction hose required and thus reducing the probability of viscous fluids from experiencing flow issues such as polyacrylamide plugs and liquid slurry blockages.
The control center transport is designed with comfort of control and has LCD monitors to view live video feeds from each piece of process equipment, including the pumps, hydration unit, chemical additive pumps, sand belts, blender tubs and sand hoppers. Additionally, the control center transport receives multichanneled data streams of diagnostic data from each equipment transport, providing a proactive approach to repair and maintenance that can result in preventable nonpumping time.
Smaller crew, safer operations
Through its use of electric systems, the company is able to use the advanced capabilities provided by automated systems, reducing by more than 50% the number of personnel required on a job site. An 11-man crew—including an electrician and turbine generator operator—perform the company’s hydraulic fracturing jobs. Also, smaller crew size means fewer safety risks like those typically associated with personnel exposure and injuries during fracturing operations of conventional equipment.
For example, diesel engines used on conventional fracturing fleets require “hot fueling” during pumping. This creates risks for fuel spillage and possible fire. Hot fueling is eliminated with the use of the electric fracturing fleet, regardless of job size or length of pump time.
Blenders and other process equipment found on conventional fleets require personnel to perform handson operations, increasing their exposure to hazardous environments. However, with the electric-powered fracturing system, no personnel are required near process equipment during a fracturing job as all operations are conducted remotely.
Process equipment is equipped with LED operational lighting and military-grade digital cameras to transmit live feeds from each equipment transport to the control center data transport. These features provide enhanced monitoring without personnel exposure to the high-pressure areas of operation. In addition, the physical layout of the equipment has been engineered to minimize the personnel required during rigup and rigdown.
The company’s configuration of electric pumps, blender, hydration and sand handling equipment provides a significantly smaller footprint for the process equipment near the wellhead. Well sites with conventional equipment typically become crowded and dangerous, with hydraulic fracturing equipment competing with wireline, coiled tubing and other service equipment for proper positioning near the wellheads.
Evolution’s equipment footprint is about 40% of conventional equipment. This reduced footprint affords operators with wellsite space or terrain constraints the opportunity to reduce wellsite construction costs in a safe and environmentally friendly manner.
As of fall 2016, Evolution had successfully completed more than 200 stages and 800-plus pumping hours in the Permian Basin, pumping more than 100 million pounds of sand and achieving a sustained maximum rate of 110 bbl/min and maximum treating pressure of 11,500 psi consistently.
14 Comments on "Unconventional Approach To Conventional Pressure Pumping"
Boat on Tue, 13th Dec 2016 8:42 pm
The hills group wil shyt a brick. An entire new model of doom will have to be developed.
Midnight Oil on Tue, 13th Dec 2016 8:55 pm
See we are environmentally responsible and leaving a smaller footprint…
I feel better already
Cloggie on Wed, 14th Dec 2016 5:38 am
The economics associated with burning field gas as the fuel to power the process equipment delivers 95% fuel cost savings in comparison to diesel fuel.
Another fine example of majestically increasing EROEI with continued technological development, which is of course like cursing in the church of the resident ecological social romantics, dreaming of Thoreau’s Walden or a farm in the Ps.
Note: “dreaming” should be stressed. As soon as “Walden” or “The Farm” materializes (if ever), after some time they all want to run back to their tablets and broadcast the message to the world that technology sucks and humanity needs to disappear from the face of the earth in order to save the biosphere. Or something. Gratefulness is not humanities most striking feature.
Btw good old Henry Thoreau had enough of his Walden “paradise” after a year or so and returned to civilization for the rest of his life.
Cloggie on Wed, 14th Dec 2016 5:58 am
A little bit off topic, but still enjoying and evaluating what happened in November in the US:
Michael Moore is a fat commie pudding, but nevertheless has a very good intuition of America’s undercurrent.
Michael Moore in Trumpland, start 0:55:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hsi-qvFE4M
This performance is iconic. His diagnosis is prescient and outright magisterial. Unlike his fellow leftists in the media, he understands what is going to happen. He hates it, but he doesn’t let his judgment be clouded by his political preferences, like all the media clowns did.
He says that if Trump wins, he will be the last president of the US. And that is exactly right. Trump led the European-American herd out of the political correct corral and they will never let themselves be driven back into it again.
November 2016 was the end of Weimerica. What follows is a split up in a nationalist, a Mexican and a commie part. The question is no longer who owns America (that didn’t change for over a century until November 2016), but who gets what.
Short clip from July:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBtqo9Bzwqk
Here Jon Stewart taking over the chair/driving seat from whitey Stephen Colbert (couldn’t be more symbolic for the history of the US over the last century) in an attempt to keep Trump from taking over:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNiqpBNE9ik&t=301s
You and your tribe lost, Jon. The NWO is not going to happen. How does that feel? What are you going to do about it?
Davy on Wed, 14th Dec 2016 6:39 am
Too bad Clog, you think that you will sit back with your popcorn and watch the US self-destruct and be immune. LMFAO. In your comfy arm chair in an idyllic Dutch village that is clean and well supplied WTF is with that? LOL. What is even more hilarious is your Europe is ahead of the pack in political, social, and economic self-destruction. The Middle East is gone already. Asia is where the most horror will happen because that is where the most people are crammed together like sardines. The US is over and Trump might be the least president. You are likely correct or at least on to something. Things come to an end that is normal and that is life too bad that end means our end as a global people especially your highly advanced and dangerously exposed Europe.
Dredd on Wed, 14th Dec 2016 7:32 am
What pressure? (Is A New Age Of Pressure Upon Us? – 10)
Dredd on Wed, 14th Dec 2016 7:39 am
Cloggie on Wed, 14th Dec 2016 5:38 am, wrote inter alia that “As soon as … The Farm … materializes” (The Farm).
Dredd on Wed, 14th Dec 2016 7:59 am
“Why do police agencies fear, and consequently target for subversion, experimental communities? That fear is abundantly evident in the documents which today are being made public for the first time. It is also evident in the protracted struggle, at great expense, which the government undertook to prevent their release. In this paper, I’ll address both of those misguided efforts in some detail.
What may now be observed is that the obsessive and neurotic character of J. Edgar Hoover, and the legacy of institutional paranoia which he bequeathed to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, drove the FBI to harass the founders of The Farm from the very beginning. That The Farm persevered in the face of this harassment and overcame the obstacles the government imposed is a testament to the courage and integrity of the core group of founders, most notably Stephen Gaskin.
What was the basis for Hoover’s fear? Well, perhaps it evolved over his half century as America’s top cop.” (Absolutism: Pabulum For The Insecure?, quoting Bates).
rockman on Wed, 14th Dec 2016 8:02 am
“The economics associated with burning field gas as the fuel to power the process equipment delivers 95% fuel cost savings in comparison to diesel fuel.” FYI: intentionally misleading. Perhaps 95% less spent to buy fuel but one also loses revenue from NG sales. They neglect to explain that an operator can use NG to run any and all equipment on the lease for FREE. No royalty or production tax payments. The downside: you don’t get the revenue from selling the NG burned. Back out that revenue loss and the energy savings isn’t anywhere close to 95%.
More important this will have a very minor impact since the availability of NG proximal to a new well will be rare. But every little bit helps. OTOH NG fired turbines are much more expensive and require greater maintence. Hopefully the company won’t go bust: since the well count bust the pricing competition has become very cutthroat. A company might spend less for the fuel but the service charge by the frac’ng company is many times greater then the fuel cost. In fact the frac sand typically costs more.
Cloggie on Wed, 14th Dec 2016 8:14 am
Too bad Clog, you think that you will sit back with your popcorn and watch the US self-destruct and be immune.
No I don’t think so at all. The comfy Pax America will be over soon for all, also us in Europe. I forecast much more European aggressiveness on the world stage, where you Americans since 1945 thought you had us in your pocket and only concentrated on the USSR and China. But the 20th century is over and world will become multi-polar. The world of Islam is rapidly emancipating from its European and American colonizers. China, same thing.
Tentative forecast:
– France will turn right-wing
– Merkel will be overthrown
– Paris-Berlin-Moscow will materialize in some form
– Rapid formation of European army
– Chaos in the US and clash between left and right
Russian and European intervening troop movements:
https://s17.postimg.org/6wwnomfpb/worldmap.jpg
Popcorn and chair?
Mark Ziegler on Wed, 14th Dec 2016 8:56 am
The capital outlay should not increase the cost of oil more than a few dollars per barrel.
rockman on Wed, 14th Dec 2016 11:48 am
Mark – Do you mean the capex for the NG-fired frac system? That won’t add anything to the cost for the operators: we aren’t buying the equipment. The frac company has. Using Evolution Well Service to frac my well will cost $X. If Halliburton will do my frac for less then $X it will get the job…not EWS. As long as the cost is less and produces the same result it makes no different to the operator if the frac company burns NG or diesel. I think given the extra infrastructure, such as pipelines, to get the NG to the unfrac’d well it’s going to make being cost competitive difficult for EWS.
Boat on Wed, 14th Dec 2016 3:36 pm
Rock,
Does trucking NG in cost more than diesel. So you think diesel use still has an overall cost advantage?
Mark on Thu, 15th Dec 2016 1:36 pm
NG isn’t as energy dense as diesel. Trucks or locomotives that use it have to burn more to accomplish the same work. Seems to me that this would make this plan a loser.