How a superior process produces superior outcomes

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

It’s true that all wells are unique, but there are certain wells that stand out. Whether it’s because of the geography, sand production rate, well pressure, or flow rate, some wells start out with a bang. However, whether a well is predictable or unusual, they require skilled service providers that have a superior process in place — backed by application engineers and highly experienced field personnel — to bring the process to life. This is how EnerCorp ensures superior outcomes for our customers.

Big solutions for big projects: Flowback 2.0+ and the Sahara Advanced Sand Cyclone

When it comes to sand management services, EnerCorp has been leading flowback in oil and gas for years. Throughout our work, we have consistently focused on innovation and product development, ensuring we can offer better results for our customers.

We started with traditional flowback, jumped to flowback 2.0, and then took another step forward to flowback 2.0+. With the Sahara Advanced Sand Cyclone as part of our arsenal, we are able to simplify flowback operations, offer unparalleled sand capture rates, and help operators keep an eye on their bottom line.

This entirely modern way of considering flowback removes virtually all sand from the production stream with one piece of equipment, while lowering equipment day rates and personnel costs along the way.

The Sahara is a sand cyclone that is customized based on the characteristics of the well. For operators that want to achieve legendary desanding results, being able to customize the wellhead desander is key. We configure the Sahara based on operation and production design factors, including:

• Range of flow rates for oil, water, and gas
• Varying wellhead pressures
• Various solid and sand particle sizes
• Expected sand volumes

The importance of vertical integration and application engineering

While having industry-leading technology supports our customers, our vertically integrated  organizational structure ensures customers are always in good hands. We design, build, sell, engineer, and operate our own equipment, which gives us an advantage other service providers don’t have. Because of this holistic approach, we are able to consistently test our own equipment out in the field in varying conditions and then improve the design to provide our customers with better outcomes. 
In addition, EnerCorp has a team of application engineers on staff, who are constantly working to innovate flowback services and desanding solutions to take the industry to the next level (you may have heard about eFlowback, a completely autonomous job site!). While some service providers focus on one-size-fits-all technology, at EnerCorp we look for ways to develop and customize the right technology for our customers’ wells — no matter how unique they may be.

Capturing record volumes of sand

Reading about superior solutions is one thing, but seeing them in action is another.

We recently worked on a well that had very high sand volumes. In fact, it ended up being the largest sand producer EnerCorp has ever managed in the Permian basin thus far. This well has a two-mile lateral. For the first 71 days of the well, it was flowing up the casing through 3-inch iron, two Sahara sand cyclones, and a 3-inch manifold, then back to the sales header and into the facility.

The well was opened on a 20-choke with 2,388 PSI. As we predicted, the high volumes of sand started very quickly and in the first week we captured 429,066 lbs of sand in our primary Sahara. The secondary Sahara captured only 2,165 lbs of sand, showing just how good the sand capture rate of this highly engineered technology is. In fact, in this well the sand capture rate of the Sahara was greater than 99.5%.

Between weeks two and six, with the choke wide open, the primary Sahara captured 1,288,598 lbs of sand, with only 3,717 lbs of sand in the second Sahara. Sand rates peaked at over 5,000 lbs of sand per hour. This capture rate was greater than 99.7%.

For the next four weeks, before the well was shut down to install production tubing, the primary Sahara captured 98,916 lbs of sand, with only 1,086 lbs of sand going in the secondary — giving us a capture rate greater than 98.9%.

At the point the well was shut down for production tubing installation, it had been open and flowing for 71 days. During this time, EnerCorp’s primary Sahara captured 1,541,558 lbs of sand. The secondary Sahara captured 6,968 lbs of sand. The overall capture rate for this well was an outstanding 99.7%.

The customer then wanted to open the man hatch on the production test separator to visually inspect the inside of the equipment. What did they find inside? Just an estimated 175-200 lbs of sand. This is all that made it into the facility and settled at the bottom of the test separator!

The customer felt comfortable flowing their well as hard as they did because they were confident in EnerCorp’s processes, our technology, and our people. We have now proven the Sahara Sand Cyclone can handle over 5,000 lbs per hour with only 2 operators per shift.