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I was born in 1956 (this is Richard Spears writing).  That year, Dowell (Schlumberger) pumped the largest frac job on record 25 miles southeast of Midland in the Spraberry Trend.  Here are the metrics:

  • Hydraulic Horsepower: 4,500 HHP

  • Frac Fluid (fresh water): 6,000 bbls

  • Proppant (sand): 200,000 pounds

  • Pump Rate: 50 BPM

  • Treating Pressure: 3,400 PSI

  • Well Depth (TVD): 7,800 feet

  • Number of Dowell hands: 22

  • Number of observers: 12

The prior record was less than half this size, when Dowell pumped about 2,500 bbls of water into an oil well a year earlier.

Fast forward to the frac jobs Dowell (Schlumberger) is pumping in the same square mile today:

  • Hydraulic Horsepower: 45,000 HHP

  • Frac Fluid (fresh water): 225,000 bbls

  • Proppant (sand): 15 million pounds

  • Pump Rate: 90 BPM

  • Treating Pressure: 9,000 PSI

  • Well Depth (TVD): 7,800 feet

  • Number of Dowell hands: 22

  • Number of observers: 12

Even though many of the numbers look vastly different, the similarities over the 64 years are striking:

  1. Frac fluid per stage is still the same;

  2. Proppant per stage is still the same;

  3. Pounds of sand per gallon is still the same;

  4. Well depth is still the same (well, duh);

  5. Number of frac hands on site, still the same;

  6. Number of extra people on site, still the same.

I used to be a frac engineer for Halliburton in what is now called the SCOOP/STACK – 1979 through the mid ‘Eighties.  When boiled down to “per stage” metrics, today’s frac jobs around Kingfisher, Oklahoma look remarkably similar to the jobs I designed and pumped 40 years ago.

So here’s my question:  Has frac changed all that much?

PS: Our old friend and former colleague, Walter Jordan, came by the office and dropped off the September 1956 issue of “DowellXtra”.  The big frac job near Midland that I described above was featured on the back page of that magazine.