IMPROVING FRACKING POWER & EFFICIENCY
Integrated platform aims
to improve real-time decision
making in frac operations
Technology gives engineers actionable insights
for optimization while aiming for balance
between frac efficiency and effectiveness
BY STEPHEN WHITFIELD, ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Recent breakthroughs in connectivity and
digital technologies are enabling the mon-
itoring and analyses of hydraulic frac-
turing operations in real time through
data streaming and analytics. While most
third-party frac monitoring solutions offer
things like real-time frac treatment data
charts, post-stage frac analytics and key
operational efficiency metrics , there was
still a need for software that could identify
opportunities for frac optimization in real
time , augmenting and improving real-time
decision making at the frac site.
At the 2022 SPE Hydraulic Fracturing
Technology Conference in The Woodlands,
Texas, on 2 February, Shell presented a
software platform it developed to host
and execute an ensemble of third-party
frac models and visualizations. It com-
municates actionable insights within
minutes of identifying a potential event
during a frac stage. The platform is a plug-
Somnath Mondal, Research Production Technologist at Shell, discussed a software
platform for frac optimization at the 2022 SPE Hydraulic Fracturing Technology
Conference in The Woodlands, Texas, on 2 February. The platform makes use of
third-party analytics to interpret data about ongoing frac operations and provide
actionable insights for on-site engineers.
38 and-play system, where users can insert
and remove third-party models measur-
ing different variables at a frac site, said
Somnath Mondal, Research Production
Technologist at Shell.
“Everyone wants to pump the best frac
that we can at every stage, but a good frac
is not just about pumping away a given
volume of water or sand at the lowest
cost, but also to get effective stimulation
distribution. We’re trying to get a balance
of efficiency and effectiveness at every
stage,” Dr Mondal said. “We’ve made a
tremendous amount of progress in getting
real-time data acquisition and running
analytics on it, but most market solutions
are still not there.”
The platform is based on a fairly sim-
ple framework: Real-time sensor data is
fed into software for processing and then
transferred into third-party models for
visualization. To limit the number of vari-
ables during lab testing and initial field
testing, only models for measuring injec-
tion rate and sand concentration were
used. However, Dr Mondal said multiple
models can be executed simultaneously
within the platform. Users can even estab-
lish a hierarchical optimization for the
whole system based on priority.
The platform identifies potential oper-
ating states for optimization by taking
the output from the third-party models
and running it through a separate model
designed to predict a given action’s impact
on pump pressure. This model looks for
points where sufficient pressure head-
room is available and the pressure trend is
favorable, to ensure that any action taken
would not increase the pressure outside
an acceptable limit for the well. It then
identifies the valid operating states that
can result from a given change to different
variables, and assigns a score.
Another model utilizes historical data to
estimate an action’s impact on the comple-
tion time and simulates a stage under
the assumption of pre-determined control
variables. From that simulation, the plat-
form can estimate the cost for each pos-
sible operating state and recommend an
operating state that is most optimal.
The platform’s recommendations are
stored in a data lake, and notifications are
sent to engineers about potential events.
The recommended actions are presented
M A R C H/A P R I L 202 2 • D R I L L I N G C O N T R AC T O R