Who gives a frac? That’s a really good question

If you truly give a frac, this is what it looks like.

A huge reason behind Saskatchewan’s growth as a ‘have’ province was the advent of horizontal oil wells with multi-stage fracking, which had a substantial impact on oil production. And Crescent Point ended up with most of the fracked oil plays in Saskatchewan – the Bakken, Torquay and Shaunavon. But in what can only be considered a stunning move, Crescent Point announced on Wednesday that it’s trying to drill wells in the Bakken but not frac them.

 

14 Replies to “Who gives a frac? That’s a really good question”

  1. Who the hell franking cares?
    Good question.

    Certainly not our politicians who ain’t gotta clue what to do.
    At some point reality is really gonna bite our arse hard with paying into a system that is totally insane in it’s unreliability.

    1. Jojo, I no longer give a f***. The terminally stupid can kill themselves, Iam old and not one of these a holes can touch me.

    1. Alec, I have 15% of my wife’s and my investments in Western Csnada oil and gas (the other 85% are in two high interest savings accounts). After reading what Crescent Point is up to, there is no way Jose I’d invest in that corporation.

  2. I remember seeing one of those pics worth a thousand proverbial words on this site.

    Map of Alberta/Saskatchewan, during Sask NDP rule and oil sites stopping at the border.

  3. All is not lost. The article explains that instead of using hydraulic fracturing to increase pore space they are drilling more horizontal legs to attain the same thing. According to Crescent Point this is cheaper and is working very well. Sounds like progress if you get the same or better result for less money.

      1. As E.J. says, Crescent claims by drilling more wells closer together they get more of the oil out of the oil field than by fracing. They don’t criticize fracing, they claim drilling has improved. I don’t know much about oil & gas but if the rock isn’t porous, I’m not sure fracing would help. Maybe it’s permeability you’re thinking of, the former being the number of pores (that hold the oil) that controls volume, and the latter being how well connected the pores are which controls flow. Fracing should increase permeability but not porosity – but you’re getting this from an Internet sleuth and not an expert.

        1. You are correct Steve.
          I am a petroleum geologist.

          The Clearwater play north of Edmonton has demonstrated that multi-leg horizontal wells can be highly profitable, even without hydraulic fracturing (or even casings or liners).

  4. If their multilaterals are tighter spaced than their fracked wells and if total recovery and initial production from a section under these multilateral wells, versus their conventional fracked well, is getting higher production and higher reserves, potentially for lower capital, I think I might buy their stock.

    1. It’s all about recovering the most oil for least dollars. I’ve done both the open hole horizontal laterals (in the Alida & Midale Marly) and multi-stage frac’d horizontals (in the Montney, Wilrich, etc.) and the multi-stage design is not only darn expensive but risky too. Using “slick water” is common for carrying frac sand (since it’s cheap & easier to set up) but it’s very pump rate sensitive. Lose a pump or two while pumping away a frac stage and the sand can quickly settle out inside the well’s casing – requiring a costly cleanout that doesn’t always clean out (i.e. you can lose access to part of the well). Frac’ing tech has improved some but I wonder how much of a toll the anti-fossil fuel investment environment’s taken on maintenance & field operation quality (thereby increasing risk). Multi-lateral open hole horizontals can work especially well in reservoir rock with quite a bit heterogeneity and are much cheaper to develop than multistage horizontals. My own Alida horizontals often went from intervals of tight rock with no visible porosity to the good brown stuff and back to tight – and ultimately produced decent oil volumes. Also, open hole wells can take advantage of natural fractures, that if open and contributing, can act like small horizontal “legs” themselves to help drain fluid from reservoir rock. It all depends on the specific rock qualities in an area. Maybe a township over the rock’s too tight for open hole horizontals and requires multistage fracs instead. No two wells are identical – they all produce unique to its well design, the quality of rock the well’s in communication with, the fluids that fill the pores and the energy (pressure) available in the rock to move those fluids. Just because Crescent Point’s electing to use multi-leg open hole horizontals doesn’t mean they’ve somehow turned woke green (although their PR department may be playing it up for that effect). It simply means that something cheaper and less risky works for them in a specific area for a specific oil play. It’s definitely 100% circumstance dependent.

    1. we ran fracs for 10 days in Texas, 10000 HP, pump entire lakes. ports and staddle packers. always carry enough HP to lose a pumper or two, redundancy . lose a pumper and just slow down , never stop. over 10 days of pumping there was time to fix or bring in another few units. Texas had lots of choice. whereas working in Columbia or Ecuador your choices were Halliburton , Halliburton or Halliburton.

      you have to plan like a Elon Musk Starship. they can loose 40% of their engines . whereas a NASA design can only lose 20%

      looks like Halliburton in the pic above

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