hydraulic fracturing treatments in order to produce at economic rates

The shortage of natural gas in the U.S. has caused an increasing number of deep well completions over the past several years--a trend that will likelycontinue. Many of these deeper wells will require hydraulic fracturing treatments in order to produce at economic rates. To achieve successful fracturing results, a material having properties superior to sand is needed toprop open the hydraulic fractures created at the high earth stresses present indeep wells.Resin coated silica sand, the commonly used propping material, tends to crush atclosure stresses encountered in deep formations, producing fine particles orfragments that can drastically reduce fluid conductivity of the proppedfracture. propped fracture. Efforts to develop a proppant capable of bearinghigh stresses without excessive crushing have produced such materials as glassbeads, steel shot, and aluminum pellets. Glass beads have been usedcommercially for over ten years, but there is evidence indicating that thestrength of the glass in multilayers is greatly decreased in the presence ofbrine. Metallic materials are presence of brine. Metallic materials arecomparatively expensive and corrode, so their use has been very limited. Otherresearch has looked at deformable materials, such as nut shells, that will notcrush and will prop open a fracture when a partial layer is present. The use ofdeformable propping materials in partial monolayer propping materials inpartial monolayer concentrations appears to have decreased in recent years.