Friction reducers (FR) are typically polyacrylamides used in high-rate slickwater fracturing operations to reduce friction created during pumping operations. A key requirement for FR is that they need to disperse and hydrate in water quickly without creating fisheyes. The primary goal is to reduce pipe friction. When FR first came to the market, they were liquid and were pumped via the liquid additive systems on legacy equipment. Liquid FR had many challenges, though, as they involved a large onsite storage footprint, would freeze in cold weather operations, and could separate. As dry FR became the preferred chemical state for the product, it was found that legacy equipment was not ideal for pumping the product. Legacy solutions that were first used to hydrate the powdered form often required human intervention, which introduced service quality concerns and had environmental and health risks due to dusting. A new delivery mechanism was required to fit the needs of the product. A method has been developed to efficiently inject dry FR or high-viscosity FR (HVFR) during stimulation.
In the new method, FR or HVFR in powder form are hydrated and injected directly into the suction of a blender or directly to the low-pressure side of the manifold trailer. The ability to discharge hydrated fluid at blender pressure enables the method to support standard or split-stream operations. This process is done on a skid, which substantially reduces the operational footprint at the wellsite compared to the conventional method; improves the rig-up procedure; and mitigates the health, safety, and environmental risks of the stimulation operation. The sensors and the control system of this unmanned unit enable the operator to optimize the injection rate of the dry FR or HVFR during the operation with a smart and digital approach for instantaneous changes in concentration.
The designed solution is modular and versatile to address a wide range of FR and HVFR concentrations. One unit is capable of injecting dry FR at rate of 50 lbm/min, and the rate can be increased to 150 lbm/min by running three skids in parallel. This modular approach enables a fit-for-product delivery system that can address slickwater, hybrid, or high-concentration HVFR jobs.
The fit-for-product HVFR delivery skid was first deployed outside of North America Land in Argentina in April 2023 and has become the preferred method for delivering dry FR and dry HVFR being used continuously in operations. As a result of this deployment, the team in Argentina has been able to manage large amounts of dry FR product with smaller footprint, less waste, and lower CO2 emissions. The percentage of hydraulic fracturing jobs with FR has been increasing in recent years outside of North America. As a subset of those jobs, there has also been an increase in jobs utilizing dry HVFR. Utilizing a powdered form of FR or HVFR has many benefits for both the operator and the service company but has also introduced operational challenges that are addressed by the modular approach, as performed in this study. The unit developed has the flexibility to work in conjunction with a wide range of fracturing blender designs to meet operator and service company operational needs.
A case study provides an application example of the unit and the approach taken to improve the method for injecting dry FR and dry HVFR to optimize completion strategy on wellsite including a digital application.
