New Fracking Technique Boosts Output 70 Percent

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

http://www.the-american-interest.com/2016/10/24/new-fracking-technique-boosts-output-70-percent/

[thackney]

Not a new technique, but a continuing refinement on the technique used for years.  Longer laterals, more sand per foot.  Many companies have been trending this way. 

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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-20/chesapeake-declares-propageddon-with-record-frack-in-louisiana

...Chesapeake said Thursday at an analyst conference that it set a record for fracking by pumping more than 25,000 tons of sand down one Louisiana natural gas well, a process the shale driller christened "propageddon.” The super-sized dose of sand -- known as "proppant" -- is able to prop open bigger and more numerous cracks in the rock for oil and gas to flow. Output from the well increased 70 percent over traditional fracking techniques, Jason Pigott, vice president of operations, said during a presentation....

...The amount of proppant used in Chesapeake’s record-setting well was more than twice the amount used on a per-foot basis in traditional frack jobs, according to a slide presentation that accompanied Pigott’s remarks. The company used 50.185 million pounds (22.76 million kilograms) of sand in its Black 2&11-15-11 1H well in the Haynesville shale region of Louisiana earlier this month. The well had a lateral length of 9,764 feet....

[uglybiker]

That explains why the price of the analytical sand I use in the cement lab has more than doubled.

[Free Vulcan]

How's the economics work out?

[IsailedawayfromFR]

How's the economics work out?

Tough without numbers on cost and some resultant production numbers to calculate reserves.

This is a Haynesville well so the rates are pretty spectacular when initially produced, then a quick decline.
If I was going to guess, the frac job likely cost +60% of the well cost, so we are talking about a well cost of up to $15mm.

One needs a lot of gas to warrant that.

This is not a new frac technique they are describing.  Same old way to frac, just a lot, lot more of frac fluids and sand proppant.

The result of this frac job is to increase the fracture surrounding the well to allow more gas to travel through the low perm rock to the wellbore.  It would be great if all those fracture were just increasing the density of fractures near the well; however, a lot of them go further out, meaning the drainage area is increased.

Increasing the drainage area is good for the well but may not be good for overall effective recovery of gas on a tract of land.

That is the other side of this equation.:  Higher per well rates but lower reserves per acre.

[MajorClay]

Amazing, peak oil must be 

[IsailedawayfromFR]

Amazing, peak oil must be 

actually, this is gas.  Your point that peak oil is discredited is correct, though, thx to technology.