A hydraulic fracturing operation can look pretty impressive on the surface. Although hydraulic fracturing itself only takes 3-5 days, the amount of equipment required is substantial. For an average hydraulic fracturing job, 800-1500 truck trips might be required to transport materials and equipment to and from the site, including 500-1200 truckloads of water.
The equipment, materials, and personnel required for hydraulic fracturing can make up 35-50% of the entire site development budget.
Let’s take a look at some of the types of equipment you might see on a typical hydraulic fracturing site.
Water tanks
The EPA estimates that a typical hydraulic fracturing job in a shale formation requires between 2 and 5 million gallons of water. That’s enough to fill about eight Olympic sized swimming pools.
All that water needs to be stored on or near the site so it’s immediately available for pumping. The water is normally hauled to the site by truck and stored in large metal tanks or very large fresh water impoundments. If all the fresh water was stored onsite in 500 barrel metal water tanks, the tank farm could range in size from about 100-250 tanks for just one well. Often, fresh water is stored in very large water impoundments of 10-20 million gallons and pumped or trucked to the site as needed for each stage of completion, greatly reducing the number of tanks required to just 20-30 or the size of the onsite water impoundment to something less than one million gallons.
Sand Storage Trucks
The most common proppant used in hydraulic fracturing is sand. The vast majority of sand used as proppant is mined in the western U.S. and either trucked or shipped by rail to a sand storage terminal. At the sand terminal, the proppant is sorted by size and type and shipped to the well location as needed.
To maintain the flowability of the proppant, it needs to remain dry until mixed with the fracturing fluid in the blender unit. In the absence of a dry storage terminal, proppant will often be stored on rail cars until it is needed. From the sand storage facility, the sand is transloaded onto sand trucks for transport to the well site. They’re referred to as sand trucks or sand hogs whether the proppant is sand, ceramic beads, or some other material.
Each rail car hold about 100 tons of sand. Each sand truck carries about 25 tons. There is great variability in the amount of proppant required per stage, but recent trends appear to indicate a stage may require 150 to 500 tons of sand.
Chemical Trucks
Chemical trucks deliver the various additives that will be mixed into the fracture fluid. The chemicals themselves are often kept in plastic containers, which are usually stored on a flatbed trailer until needed.
Mixers or Blenders
The mixer or blender is where water, proppants, and additives are combined to create a fracture fluid with the desired composition and consistency.
Pump Trucks
Pressure pumping trucks are the workhorses of the hydraulic fracturing process. It is these trucks that pump water into the well and supply the pressure that fractures the formation.
A typical well site may contain 15-30 pressure pumping trucks, each equipped with a 1,000–3,000 horsepower pump, during hydraulic fracturing operations. The exact number depends on the water volumes and pressures operators expect will be required given the fracture design. Each truck withdraws fluid from the fracture fluid tanks, and pumps it down the well under high pressures. Usually, the pressure pumping trucks are all connected to a central pipe system or high-pressure manifold, which combines the flow from the different trucks and directs it down the well.
Fracture Fluid Tanks
These tanks store fracture fluid after it has been mixed. They supply the fluid to the pressure pumping trucks, which pressurize it and pump it down the well.
Flowback Tanks
These tanks store fracturing fluids returning up the wellbore after the stimulation process is complete. Flowback fluids are forced out of the well by hydrocarbons rising towards the surface. They need to be separated from the hydrocarbons and treated.
Data Van
The data van is the command center for the hydraulic fracturing site. Data from various sensors monitoring pressure and other variables is routed to the data van, where trained professionals monitor the progress of the fracturing job.
From the data van, operators can control and monitor pumps, mixers, valves, and other pieces of machinery. The centralized command afforded by the data van makes hydraulic fracturing operations safer and more efficient.
Images: “Surface Setup” by Jim Ladlee for Top Energy Training; “Water Tanks” by Jim Ladlee for Top Energy Training; “Sand Trucks” by Jim Ladlee for Top Energy Training; “Chemical Storage” by Jim Ladlee for Top Energy Training; “Water Trucks” by Jim Ladlee for Top Energy Training; “Data Van” by Jim Ladlee for Top Energy Training