Feb 11 2010
Santrol Oil and Gas Stimulation is receiving impressive results from early tests of its new PowerProp Multicoat Proppant.
PowerProp is resin-coated sand designed to perform comparably to a lightweight ceramic. When tested under industry standard methods, the new proppant technology not only equaled the performance of a lightweight ceramic proppant, it outperformed it in every category: The PowerProp proppant achieved superior conductivity and permeability results. It demonstrated consistently better crush strength in the hot wet crush test and the beta conductivity to gas performance test, which predicts non-Darcy flow in higher, more turbulent flow conditions. In field testing, it has excelled at temperatures of more than 300 degrees F and at closing stresses above 10,000 psi.
"We have been trying for quite some time to develop resin-coated sand with the fracture toughness of a ceramic proppant," said Jesus Espinoza Santrol Corporate Customer Technical Liaison Manager. "Our goal was to create resin-coated sand that could achieve 1,000 milliDarcy-feet conductivity at 10,000 psi closure. Even with a coat of resin, traditional resin coated sand is too brittle. We needed more than a better resin; we needed an entirely new coating technology."
Santrol has developed and applied for patents on both the resin developments and a new multi-coat process.
PowerProp was field tested using a 40/70 grade product in a fracture treatment in the Haynesville Shale in North Louisiana, where depths, temperatures and reservoir stresses are suitable for only a limited range of proppant types. Espinoza said that with the increase of unconventional shale and tight sand development, there is a growing need for proppants with the fractional toughness of a lightweight ceramic and the diagenesis resistance of resin-coated sand.
"We intend for PowerProp to be the first of several new proppant innovations based on our new coating technology," said Santrol Vice President Pat Okell. "The next version will have a unique crystalline structure that actually gets tougher with increasing pressure and temperature…an intelligent proppant. After that, we're looking to dial up the fractural toughness even further with a proppant that can match bauxite performance at a much lower specific gravity."