Fracturing Fleet Pumping Schedule Offset for Peak Rate Control
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Solution Overview
Problem
The existing hydraulic fracturing equipment often lacks sufficient pumping capacity to stimulate multiple wells simultaneously without exceeding operational limits, leading to reduced reliability and efficiency due to equipment age and maintenance issues.
Innovation Solution
The fracturing fleet is divided into clean and dirty pumping groups, with the clean group using less abrasive equipment to increase overall pumping capacity, and a pumping schedule is designed to offset pumping stages between wells to avoid peak rates that exceed equipment limits, utilizing a computerized management system to optimize equipment usage based on reliability scores.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If multiple wells are stimulated simultaneously with the same fracturing equipment, then productivity increases, but the pumping capacity exceeds equipment limits
Solution Approach 1:
The fracturing fleet is divided into clean pumping groups and dirty pumping groups. Clean groups use less abrasive equipment to pump clean fracturing fluid, while dirty groups handle proppant-laden fluid. This segmentation allows simultaneous stimulation of multiple wells by distributing pumping tasks across different groups, effectively increasing total productivity without exceeding individual equipment limits.
2Productivity
If pumping stages are concentrated in the same intervals, then treatment efficiency improves, but peak pumping rates exceed equipment operational limits
Solution Approach 1:
The pumping schedule is designed to offset pumping stages between different wells temporally. Instead of all wells receiving treatment at peak rates simultaneously, the schedule staggers the pumping stages so that when one well is at high rate, another is at lower rate. This periodic distribution maintains high overall treatment efficiency while keeping instantaneous pumping rates within equipment operational limits, ensuring reliability.
3Device complexity
If existing equipment is used for multiple wells, then device complexity is reduced, but equipment stress and failure risk increase
Solution Approach 1:
The fracturing fleet is segmented into specialized clean and dirty pumping groups with distinct functional roles. This segmentation allows existing equipment to be optimally utilized for specific task types, reducing overall stress on individual units while maintaining operational reliability during simultaneous multi-well stimulation.
Solution Approach 2:
The operational parameters of the pumping schedule are changed to offset timing between wells. By adjusting the temporal parameters of when each well receives treatment, the system distributes equipment stress over time rather than concentrating it, thereby maintaining equipment reliability during high-productivity operations.
Data Source
AI summary
A method of controlling a pumping sequence of a fracturing fleet at a wellsite with two wellbore comprising determining a first pumping sequence for a first wellbore and determining a second pumping sequence for a second wellbore. The pumping sequences are comprised of a plurality of pump stages that are intervals based on time or volume. The intervals of the first pumping sequence and the second pump sequences are overlapped into a combined pumping sequence. At least one interval is identified wherein the combined pumping sequence exceeds an operating limit of at least one fracturing unit and the intervals from the second pumping sequence is offset from the intervals of the first pumping sequence to create a modified combined pumping sequence, wherein the interval of the modified combined pumping sequence is below the operating limit.