lightweight proppant, in particular, embed deeply into soft shale formations.

Uncoated proppants and precured resin coated silica sand often deeply embed into softer formations due to the increased single point loading between the proppant grain and the soft fracture face. This leads to reduced fracture width and lower fracture flow capacity.
lightweight proppant, in particular, embed deeply into soft shale formations. An additional issue with proppant embedment is the spalling of formation fines which can migrate and cause additional loss of fracture conductivity. With curable resin coated proppants, instead of just single grain point loading, there are multiple grains bonded together. This lattice network of deformable surfaces provided by the curable resin coating has shown to reduce embedment by redistributing stresses on the proppant pack within the fracture.

Ceramic proppants can be one of the key components in the state of the art process of gas and oil well fracking

Ceramic proppants can be one of the key components in the state of the art process of gas and oil well fracking  . The introduction of proppants to the process of hydraulic fracturing has brought about increased hydrocarbon production rates and recovery. Proppants prevent fracture closure by keeping the hydraulically created fractures propped open with a high conductivity medium, and allow for an increased fracture flow capacity. Technical and chemical characteristics of proppants dramatically influence their efficiency in hydraulic fracturing. Having the correct location specific proppant can make a significant difference on a well’s production rate and life, and profitability, and for this reason it is imperative to utilize the appropriate product or products. Fores is a trusted ceramic proppant supplier. View details on our top materials below, download a technical data sheet or request a quote.

Ceramic proppants come in different anti crushing strengths and sizes

Other types of proppants like sand or sand-based might be cheaper, but both engineering study and real oil and gas production experiences show that ceramic proppants provide higher and consistent oil and gas production rate due to their higher strength, uniformed sizes and shapes regardless in the shapes of reservoirs and their conditions. Ceramic Proppant grains with uniform size and shape has great advantage of providing maximum porosity for the oil and gas flow channel and allows more oil and gas flow the proppant pack.
Ceramic proppants come in different anti crushing strengths and sizes, and can be classified as into middle ranged density ceramic proppants, mid to high density ceramic proppants. Each group has different ranges of anti-crushing strength.

The resin coating of the precured proppants provides crush resistance to the substrate.

Resin coated proppant can be further classified into precured and curable resin coated proppants. Precured resin coated proppants comprise a substrate coated with a resin which has been significantly crosslinked. The resin coating of the precured proppants provides crush resistance to the substrate. Since the resin coating is already cured before it is introduced into the well, even under high pressure and temperature conditions, the proppant does not agglomerate. Such precured resin coated proppants are typically held in the well by the stress surrounding them. In some hydraulic fracturing circumstances, the precured proppants in the well would flow back from the fracture, especially during clean up or production in oil and gas wells. Some of the proppant can be transported out of the fractured zones and into the well bore by fracturing fluid produced from the well. This transportation is known as flow back.

One advantage of this low density proppant is that fewer pounds of this proppant are required

One advantage of this low density proppant is that fewer pounds of this proppant are required, as compared to high density ceramic, to fill a given void in the formation. Since proppants are generally sold by the pound, the user buys fewer pounds of proppant for a particular application. Another advantage of this low density proppant is the ability to use a lower viscosity fracturing fluid during pumping operations, resulting in more economical pumping at lower pumping rates than those required with the use of heavier or denser proppants. Still another advantage is the relatively low silica content.
These advantages can be achieved by forming solid spherical pellets or particles from kaolin clay having an alumina content of between 40 and 60%. Normally, this material would have an apparent specific gravity of about 3.0 g/cc, as disclosed in Lunghofer. However, the density can be significantly reduced by carefully controlling the time and temperature of the firing process. In order to achieve an apparent specific gravity of from about 1.60 to about 2.10 g/cc and a bulk density of from about 0.95 to about 1.30 g/cc, the pellets are fired at a temperature of from about 1200 to about 1350° C.

The new technique involves super lightweight proppant

The new technique involves super lightweight proppant and water weight polymers, super lightweight proppant settling rate is much slower than the sand and ceramics, which to some extent reduces the required volume of water, while some offset by higher unit costs.
Method is a very meaningful alternative to the solution to promote adhesion of microbubbles sediment, like ultra lightweight proppant as easily portable, which reduces the amount of traditional job requirements, but also improve the well productivity, the main is due to improved connectivity.
A different strategy is the channel Fiber can be used for coagulation proppant pillar structure and the formation of poly block channels to promote traffic and prevent the scattering of the pumping process.
For the North American onshore  Unconventional gas  services sector, the main driver of value creation may turn to technology to improve operational efficiency and production integration. In fact, the technology has the potential to improve the mechanical efficiency of the equipment through improved standardization and standardization of equipment.

Shale gas water fracturing technology and China's constraints

Horizontal drilling and multi-stage fracturing of shale gas development is the core technology, but also the countries hope to break through the technical "bottleneck." Currently, large-scale hydraulic fracturing proppant is the transformation of shale gas, the key to creating business capacity, but can not fully meet the actual needs of China. Compared with North America, China shale gas development more special geological conditions, scope buried deeper stratigraphic older.

China shale gas are located in Sichuan, Guizhou, Xinjiang, Songliao and other hilly, mountainous areas, water scarcity, transportation inconvenience, a large water fracturing can only meet the pre-trial development, when large-scale commercial exploitation of these problems will certainly as a constraint to the development of shale gas an important factor. Therefore, to explore shale gas development to adapt to China's technology system, the formation of independent property rights of the original innovation is the only way for China's shale gas development.