Technology Roundtable: Proppants

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1. What is the level of demand for proppants in Russia?  How has this changed from the past 5 years?

Borovichi Refractories Plant: Honestly, proppants are the “most wanted” material for oil and gas industry today. The only limits are both the number of frac fleets and the capacity of frac fleets. The demand for proppants is ever growing and the majority of our fields cannot produce efficiently without hydraulic fracturing. If we have a look at 5 years history, the use of proppants sky-rocketed from 350k tons in 2013 to 1300k tons per year (forecast for 2018), and we speak about Russian market only. Considering the tight or shale reserves, one can say that proppants will have the great future.

FORES: The Russian proppant use was:

• 541 thousand tons in 2011;
• 617 thousand tons in 2012;
• 646 thousand tons in 2013;
• 762 thousand tons in 2014;
• 832 thousand tons in 2015;
• 1,032 thousand tons in 2016;
• 1,300 thousand tons in 2017.
• The 2018 use forecast is 1,350 thousand tons.

WellProp: Proppants have been in high demand for many years, and recently there has been a push towards hard-to-produce resources and multi-stage hydraulic fracturing, further increasing demand.     

2. How commonly used are the higher quality ceramic and resin coated proppants in Russia? What advantages do they offer?

Borovichi Refractories Plant: The USSR began to frac the formations in 50s of the last century. At that time the only proppant was river sands of pure quality. However it worked as long as the wells were shallow. In addition, the Soviets had no “sand culture” – as I name it. It means that there were no plants that could produce high quality frac sand, like in the US where the main frac sand suppliers have quarry and production facilities. And the most important, Russia still does not have any developed deposits of the sand that can be used for frac application even after the treatment. So, I would say that 99% of Russian proppant market is the ceramic proppants, so far. In respect of advantages, it should be mentioned that reservoirs conditions, closure stresses first of all, and permeability values require the proppants of coarse mesh sizes (20/40 – 12/18) with crush resistance of 4000 – 6000 psi. So, Russian sands are still not the right alternative to ceramic proppants as they have poor grain shape and strength even being precisely sieved. Resin coated ceramics take about 20% of the market, and are mostly used as curable RCP for flowback control. Any attempts to substitute ceramics with Resin Coated Sand have been unsuccessful,
so far.

FORES: Sand is not used because of its low quality, which thwarts output goals. Ceramic and polymer coated proppant are mixed at a 92% to 8% ratio of the required amount only if polymeric proppant is necessary for the main ceramic proppant pack to stay in place (proppant flowback control).

Currently, there are several proppant types:

• Ceramic proppant
• Polymer coated proppant
• High strength proppant
• Light proppant

Proppant, unlike sand, has high strength, sphericity, roundness and thus a higher conductivity and permeability. As a result, the liquid throughput increases through a pack of propane injected into the well. Also, high proppant strength extends well life exponentially.   

WellProp: Just a few years ago, demand for polymeric proppants was quite high because of its effectiveness in controlling flowback to the surface. However, at the moment, higher prices reduce the demand for polymeric proppants.

High strength proppants are still used extensively in deep wells with high stresses where proppant characteristics, such as, crush strength are critical.             

3. What type of proppants do you offer? How does the proppant type effect which wells it should be used in?

Borovichi Refractories Plant: Borovichi’s main product is BORPROP ISP ceramic proppant that has been produced since 1996. The range of mesh sizes includes 30/50, 20/40, 16/30, 16/20 and 12/18. BORPROP is designed for the stresses up to 10000 psi and can withstand severe formation conditions like acid treatment and high temperatures. Chasing the market trends, we supply curable resin coated proppants for flowback control (BORPROP RCP), and precured high strength ceramics (BORPROP SSP). BORPROP RCP has three types for different temperature applications, and BORPROP SSP can be used for closure stresses up to 15000 psi. The choice of proppant is the responsibility of operator and, in some cases, service company. However, sometimes we may recommend our proppants in accordance with well characteristics: closure stress, permeability, temperature, acid frac, etc. In reality, frac engineers do not give any parameters as they are confidential data. As a rule, BORPROP is chosen for the wells with higher closure stresses.        

FORES: FORES produces a full range of proppants for oil and gas companies, specifically:

Mass production:

• The ForeProp ceramic proppant with a bulk density of 1.6 g/cm3
• The ForeRCP polymer coated proppant with a bulk density of 1.6 g/cm3

Custom production:

• The ForeLWP light ceramic proppant with a bulk density of 1.4 g/cm3
• The ForeRCPL light polymer coated proppant with a bulk density of 1.4 g/cm3
• The ForeESPL reinforced light polymer coated proppant with a bulk density of 1.4 g/cm3
• The ForeESP high strength ceramic proppant with a bulk density of 1.6 g/cm3

Well parameters always determine the proppant size and grade.

WellProp: WellProp, LLC, (formerly CARBO Ceramics Eurasia, LLC) has quite a wide proppant range both in terms of types and capabilities, from ultra-light proppants with  density lower than 1.2 g/cm3 to super high strength proppants capable of withstanding loads exceeding 20,000 psi. Moreover, our company produces the highest strength proppant among all Russian manufacturers.

Based on the type and characteristics of a test well, the customer selects a suitable proppant type that will perform ideally in very specific conditions.      

4. How does the quality of the proppant effect the success of the frac job? What  systems do you have in place to ensure proppant quality during production?

Borovichi Refractories Plant: This is very interesting question and I’d rather avoid answering it. I have good experience with the US service companies and frac sand suppliers. The opinions on proppants are very different and I do not want to be a narrow-minded guy. Sure, when we use any proppant, the higher quality is the advantage. From the other hand, the main point is still the costs per well. I think this question is better to address to frac people. At Borovichi, our practice is to maintain the high quality of the product. So, in the beginning of 2000 we certified our Quality Management System under the API Q1 Specs. In any case, BORPROP is still the best choice of operators/service companies in respect of quality.   

FORES: Proppant quality does not impact the success of hydraulic fracturing. Proppant quality impacts the final fluid rate and well life.

Proppant quality does not impact the success of hydraulic fracturing. Proppant quality impacts the final fluid rate and well life. Proppant quality is driven by its production process. Production is ISO 9001 certified and coupled with a continuous quality control system.

WellProp: A major component in the success of hydraulic fracturing is proppant quality. Strength is the major yardstick for proppant selection for the particular reservoir conditions aimed at a long-term fracture conductivity at the reservoir depth.

The quality of WellProp proppants is tested in accordance with both an international ISO 13503:2 standard and GOST R 51761-2013.

The products are annually submitted to the Research and Laboratory Center for Core Samples and Proppants to confirm our proppant compliance with ISO and GOST R.

5. What factors should operators and service companies consider with proppant permeability and mesh size?

Borovichi Refractories Plant: Actually, all the parameters of a proppant are considered by operator/service company. That is why all proppant manufacturers make the tests at the independent labs. Some tests are quite comprehensive and cannot be replicated in the field conditions. The main properties that firstly required by all end users are: crush resistance and sieve analysis.

FORES: Proppant selection is based on formation geology. Using this information, oil and gas production and service companies select the proppant.    

WellProp: When selecting the proppant for a specific reservoir considered for well hydraulic fracturing, the primary focus should be on proppant permeability and grain size. The higher the reservoir permeability, the larger the proppant. Proppant permeability is linked to its size: the larger the grain, the higher its permeability.

6. Proppant weight and strength – How can an operator and service companies best evaluate the correct weight and strength profile for a proppant?

Borovichi Refractories Plant: The best way is to have your own laboratory. In some cases operators and service companies have mobile field labs for express analysis, and/or testing facilities at a warehouse. Big operators/service companies have R&D centers for multiple tests, including proppant evaluation for crush and bulk density. Notwithstanding the Quality Certificates of proppant manufacturers, frac engineers try to check every batch of proppant supplied. Sure, this is time consuming process, so, such tests results are very subjective. In case of any dispute between the customer and supplier regarding proppant quality, the samples of a “suspected” proppant is sent to an independent laboratory. However, in general, most of proppants are accepted and pumped on the base of data submitted by manufacturer: quality certificate and a report of independent lab.      

FORES: Everything depends on formation geology. Proppant choice is always well-specific.

WellProp: The first and most popular material to hold fractures open was sand with a specific gravity of approximately 2.65g/cm3. Sand is usually used for hydraulic fracturing of reservoirs with a compressive stress not exceeding 40 MPa. Intermediate strength ceramic proppants with a specific gravity of 2.7 to 3.3g/cm3 are used at a maximum compressive stress of 69 MPa. Super high strength proppants are used at a maximum compressive stress of 100 MPa; their specific gravity is between 3.2 and 3.8g/cm3 but selection of super high strength proppant occurs less often because of their higher price.

Strength is the major yardstick for proppant selection for the particular deposit conditions aimed at a long-term fracture conductivity at deposit depth. Lowest-level stress in deep wells is oriented horizontally inducing mainly vertical fractures. The maximum vertical stress rises with depth. Therefore, in terms of depth, proppants are used in the following applications: quartz sand at a depth less than or equal to 2,500m, intermediate strength proppants at a depth less than or equal to 3,500m, and high strength proppants at a depth exceeding 3,500m.

7. How can an operator maximize propped fracture conductivity?

Borovichi Refractories Plant: This is the expertise of frac engineer. Each frac job is a unique operation with many parameters that should be considered. The simplest and common solutions could be either the usage of lager mesh sizes or the increase of proppant volume per well to enhance the contact area.

WellProp: Proppant grain transport and deposition inside the fracture is extremely important for hydraulic fracturing. For heavier proppants to be transported as far down the fracture length as possible, a higher fluid carrying capacity is required to prevent settling; this generally means high carrying fluid viscosity. Proppants with a lower bulk density can be transported further down the fracture at a low fluid viscosity since they stay suspended much longer.

8. How can an operator ensure the proppants will be transported deeper into the fracture?

Borovichi Refractories Plant: I would say they need the frac equipment with sufficient power and implement multi-size proppant pack: 100 mesh, 40/70, 30/50 in the beginning and then 20/40 and larger if required. It’s just my vision as a proppant producer, like: “one pill makes you larger and one pill makes you small, some pills that your mother gives you don’t do anything at all – go and ask Alice when she’s ten feet tall”. No doubts, frac people have their know-hows to do frac jobs more efficiently: frac fluids, surfactants, foams, etc. Technology evolves every day and the US shale revolution is the best example.   

9. Proppant transportation to a remote location can be a significant part of the cost of the proppant.  How do you try to minimise the cost to your clients?

Borovichi Refractories Plant: In Russia, the logistics is the issue, of course. To satisfy the customers, we have warehouses in the main locations of Siberia. Big volumes of proppant at a warehouse allow us to decrease the costs of storage. In some cases, we rent services of transport companies to deliver proppant from warehouse directly to a single well. Unfortunately, we can’t control the costs of Russian Railways as they are greedy guys with ever growing appetite. In any case, all the people that work in Siberia and in the Russian North understand that the price of doing business within these areas is high and you have nothing to do with it.

FORES: In the 15 years that have passed since the start of production, our company launched 3 consignment warehouses in Nyagan, Nizhnevartovsk, and Pyt Yakh of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area. It relieved the burden of the logistics expenses for handling and storage off oil and gas production and service companies. Moreover, during the navigation season, our company delivers proppant to fields via water.   

WellProp: With a network of bonded warehouses at the busiest locations in the Western Siberia, WellProp, LLC, can promptly deliver the proppant to its customers by stocking the warehouses when the shipping rates are at their lowest (so all centres are stocked before winter), creating savings on shipping to be turned over to our customers for the best proppant price offerings.    

10. What do you think will be the future for proppant’s in Russia?

With competitive price and timely delivery, AnYiCheng sincerely hope to be your supplier and partner.

Borovichi Refractories Plant: As I have already said previously, the proppants are facing the great future in Russia. The only question: what proppant – ceramics or frac sand. Ceramic proppants dominate now, but they have very big restriction: raw materials. Plus, production facility is another big deal. My opinion is if one day somebody finds good deposit of frac sand somewhere, the sand will be the long term winner.

FORES: At the moment, hydraulic fracturing is the most cost-effective technology for enhancing oil recovery. Prospects for the success of proppant will be determined by oil prices and oil production targets.

WellProp: Hydraulic fracturing maintains its position as one of the most widespread well simulation and oil recovery enhancement technology worldwide, and, in view of the need to develop the so-called brownfields with their hard-to-produce resources, the high quality and high technology proppants produced and aggressively marketed by our company will be one of the most in demand solutions.   

Alexey Timofeev
Borovichi Refractories Plant

Alexei studied at the Soviet High Military School: Control, Command, Communication, plus as a Military Interpreter, he graduated in 1990. From 1993-94 he worked for Volga-Dnepr Cargo Airlines as an interpreter.  In 2001-2008 he moved to Borovichi Refractories and worked in the sales and marketing team. From 2008-2016 he worked for Sibelco/Unimin to head up their Russian frac sand business: evaluation, mining, processing and applications. In 2016 he took up the role as the Head of the Proppant Division of Borovichi Refractories and is responsible for all aspects of their sales and marketing within the proppant business.

Kristina Mikhailovna Polyakova
WellProp 

Head of Sales Department, LLC «WellProp», began her career in the oil and gas industry in 2003 at the American company Carbo Ceramics Inc, the world leader in the production of proppants, based in Aberdeen, Scotland.

After Carbo formed a Russian entity in 2004 she actively promoted the American brand in the Russian market, and also took an active role in the construction of the plant in Kopeysk, Chelyabinsk region. Before the plant was put into operation, she was engaged in import-export operations to provide Russian customers with proppants produced at the company’s other, worldwide plants. After launching its own production in Russia, she actively worked in marketing, market analysis and strategic development. Currently she heads up the Moscow sales office.

A Minnesota company creates a new start-up operation to meet frac sand demand.

In ancient times, sea water washed across Wisconsin and Minnesota, eventually leaving sand on the sea bottom that was uniformly hard and round. Eons later, the sand was discovered to be particularly desirable for use in horizontal hydraulic fracturing.

So the granular material is being gobbled up, carted away and injected into the ground again to prop open subterranean cracks so oil or gas can ooze out. Because this sand lies near the surface in Wisconsin, more than 100 proposed or operating mines have been organized to skim off the silicate material for fracking companies that can’t get enough of it.

Tiller Corp. entered this commercial fray two years ago. The 67-year-old Minnesota gravel and asphalt company based in Maple Grove was introduced to the business in 2010 when it began washing material for Preferred Sands LLC.

Tiller soon decided that the booming market for proppant sand perfectly complemented its core business, particularly in a stagnant road-building economy, so it started up Barton Industrial Sands LLC. The company located a surface mine near the St. Croix River in Wisconsin about 65 miles north of Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn.

The mine is the former Soderbeck gravel pit near Grantsburg, a tract owned by Interstate Energy Partners. Below the gravel strata in the 160-acre property is a reserve of sand fine enough for use in fracking, as well as some coarser sands suitable for other commercial applications. Interstate signed up Barton to work the site.

“Interstate bought the property and contracted with us to take the sand from the ground, truck it, process it and load it into a railcar, and then it’s their sand again,” says Pete Olson, Tiller’s director of aggregate operations.

Material flow
At the mine, a Caterpillar loader dumps a raw mix of sand into a JCI 6 x 20 wet screen, which sends selected material along to a McLanahan separator. Separated-out material then enters a McLanahan flat-bottom classifier, which channels the slurry into a VD18 dewatering screen. The screen produces a stackable frac sand of 20 to 50 mesh size. The entire process takes five minutes.

Finer material that was de-selected is captured in a separate ultra-fine recovery process. This second filtering greatly reduces the volume of material that otherwise would end up in a slurry pond – thus enhancing the pond’s utility.

Four people run the entire operation, and a fifth is tasked with quality control. R.B. Scott Co. of Eau Claire supplied the equipment.

To process the sand, Barton executives settled on 20 acres located 25 miles south of Grantsburg in North Branch, Minn., at the southern terminus of the St. Croix Valley Railroad. The proximity to the railroad was a key consideration.

The shortline railroad operates on track formerly owned by Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway and connects with BNSF main lines. This means Barton’s processed sand can be loaded at the plant for direct shipping south, east and west to America’s oil and gas fracking hot spots.

State of the art
Barton began to turn the nearly empty site into a state-of-the-art sand processing plant. The engineering firm M.A. Bielski & Associates, Chanhassen, Minn., designed a 90-ft.-high screening building, positioned the plant’s waste and storage silos, and sited three railroad track spurs for railcars.

The rest of the engineering – and all of the electrical wiring – was completed in house. Tiller employees were pulled as needed from its other divisions, including Todd Laubis, vice president of Tiller’s asphalt operations, who was instrumental in development of the industrial sand plant.

The thinking behind Barton’s approach to constructing a plant was that it had to be instantly recognized as a premier facility. “We were not going to be the first one in the business,” Olson says, “so we wanted to make sure we produced a very high-quality product in a very efficient operation.”

No one would argue with the plant’s efficiency, beginning with its receiving system. To truck the wet-in-process sand from Grantsburg, the company uses 25-ton grain haulers that were modified to handle the material. The trucks enter the plant grounds and roll onto a Masaba unloading hopper that can accommodate an entire truckload. According to Laubis, a truck’s approach triggers the equipment so that the sand is dumped into machinery prepared to receive it.

A Superior TeleStacker conveyor funnels the sand to a 100 x 100-ft. walled tent that can shelter 6,000 tons of the quartz material. A hopper in the floor of the tented area eventually feeds another TeleStacker, carrying the material to a 50-ft.-long, 9-ft.-high Custom Welding-Metal Fabricating Co. dryer attached to a Gencor burner. Temperatures reaching 220 degrees strip away any residual moisture still clinging to the sand from its washing at the mine.

From there the sand is bucketed to the upper reaches of a 90-ft.-high, steel-framed structure where the material is dropped through a series of Sweco screens to separate proppant sand from other products. Each finished and waste product is channeled into a separate Belgrade storage silo.

Waste products are accumulated in 220-ton silos and eventually trucked from the site. The finished product flows into 270-ton capacity silos from which it is conveyed on demand to a 100-ton trackside loading unit. From there, the sand is loaded into railcars in measurable dumps, with a scanner recording data on each car as it rolls up to be loaded.

24-hour turnaround
A remote-controlled Trackmobile moves the 110-ton railcars as needed, which is often. The sand doesn’t linger in North Branch. Laubis says that just 24 hours after a load of fracking sand is dumped into the Masaba hopper, the material typically has been dried, sorted out, loaded onto a railcar and sent on its way to a drilling field. Track spurs on the site can handle up to 70 railcars.

The whole process is managed in a 12 x 20-ft. control house designed by Barton Industrial Sands’ engineers. There, buttons and switches are passé. Instead, a controller moves a mouse and clicks on screens to monitor and regulate flow of the sand through the facility. Three Barton personnel work each day shift and three at night – plus quality control personnel. The economy of staffing is one reason the plant has attracted admiring industry visitors.

“There certainly has been a lot of interest in the facility from other producers,” Olson acknowledges, “and we’ve received good feedback from customers and from the railroad.”

The plant shipped its first carload of sand last year, and is geared to process up to 700,000 tons of high-quality proppant a year. An already-engineered second-phase expansion of the screening tower will double the plant’s production capacity as needed.

The processing facility incorporates seven baghouses, or emissions control devices, a reflection of public sensitivity about air quality. Mike Caron, Tiller’s director of land use affairs, said emissions from the dryer and dust from the stockpiled sand are even more closely monitored than emissions from gravel operations.

“There is a much higher review for an industrial-sand operation than we normally undergo,” Caron says. “In Minnesota, the standard for environmental review of an industrial-sand operation is a 20-acre site versus a sand-and-gravel operation, which is a 40-acre site.”

The stakes were raised at the North Branch facility because Barton Industrial Sands inadvertently started construction before actually receiving its permit for air quality. Consequently, the company had to do a review of its process and, with a consultant, find and implement the best available system for the facility. In other words, the plant also is state-of-the-art in its emissions controls.

Pond-less
The company suffered another momentary setback at the start of operations when sediment at its Grantsburg mine spilled into neighboring wetlands and from there into the St. Croix River. A new waste settling pond had been constructed from dirt on site, and the soil proved too porous to contain the sediment.

“Once we found out what was happening, we stopped operations at the mine immediately, in less than an hour,” Caron says. The settling pond was pumped dry and rebuilt using different material, but eventually it was decommissioned entirely, thereby eliminating the possibility of a recurrence. “We felt we could accomplish what we needed to do without a pond in that area.”

A study determined that no short-term or long-term environmental damage was incurred by the wetland or river. The site is now inspected daily and closely monitored. Legal challenges raised by the spill are still unresolved.

Olson calls the spill “a one-off. We are very regretful that it happened.” Tiller has been recognized over the years by local and state environmental organizations for its environmental awareness and precautions. But because of the mine’s connection to fracking, the incident got lots of media play.

“There definitely is a fear of the unknown,” Olson says, noting that the company received public pushback in applying for and constructing the dry processing plant in North Branch. “But since we have begun operating it, they have been surprised at how low an impact there is on the environment.”

Olson says the company is exploring other mine opportunities to add to its proppant sand reserve. The plant will stay busy regardless, because the operation is set up to process sand from multiple sources or as a custom supplier.

Take note
The processing facility incorporates seven baghouses, or emissions control devices, a reflection of public sensitivity about air quality.

Giles Lambertson in a previous life was a carpenter and has been writing about the construction, mining and heavy equipment industries for more than a decade. He can be reached at geepeela@yahoo.com.

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