Proppant: A Hot Commodity in Short Supply!!!

摘要

Proppant is defined as sized particles mixed with fracturing fluid to hold fracturesopen after a hydraulic fracturing treatment. Proppant materials are carefully sortedfor size and sphericity to provide an efficient conduit for production of fluid fromthe reservoir to the wellbore1. These “sized particles” are commonly referred to asFrac Sand, Northern White, White, Brown, Brady, Resin Coated, Ceramic orBauxite, but whatever you want to call them, proppant has become such a hotcommodity that the entire oil & gas industry has stopped to take notice.During the entire decade of the 1990s, frac sand was basically a zero growthindustry. The frac sand market ended the decade at about the same annual volumeor mass that began the decade, slightly less than 3 billion pounds (1.5 million tons).On the other hand, the growth market in the 90s was the resin coated and ceramicproppant manufacturers, which more than doubled their annual market output, buteven that was still less than 1 billion pounds (500 thousand tons)2 combined.However, when the decade of the 90s ended it delivered not only a new decade buta new century. With it came unprecedented growth in the proppant market. As aresult, in the first decade of the 21st century, nine out of ten years demonstratedconstant growth across all proppant markets; sand, resin coat and ceramic.What drives the growth, what proppants are in demand, and is the demandsustainable? Unfortunately, there is no clear cut answer to the last question, butthis paper will at least try to identify some of the mechanisms to better facilitate thebest thing going, the educated guess.