A classic non sequitur!

 

So any way I see some want to push the whose side is right on this so with that either put out or get out as in provide supporting credible scientific study references to what you feel or shut up. Mostly just shut up since neither side can supply enough data to prove much of anything solidly at this point other than whatever the media and politicians predicted so far in the last too many decades to count has been no where close to accurate.

Personally I am all for climate change that heats things up where I live but unfortunately the trend here for the last 10 - 15 or more years has been cooler and wetter not hotter and dryer.

So with that can we go back to questions about fraccing or do I need to have the mods come in and clean things up again?

 

So with that can we go back to questions about fraccing or do I need to have the mods come in and clean things up again?

Told ya so!

 

So with that can we go back to questions about fraccing or do I need to have the mods come in and clean things up again?

Frankly, I don't think you give two twists of a knob either way.

Sorry, man I'd rather read "War and Peace"

I think this "Thread" has been pretty "well" fracked, not sure how much more it can be fracked ?

Frack-on

kv

 

Personally I thought this thread got sanded off and was no longer frackable months ago.

 

Personally I thought this thread got sanded off

I thought so too! But; now I don't know? maybe it's a new type of stain; oil sanding. A deep stain in wood once ingrained; just won't rub out?

Currently I'm doing a new floor. I have some oil stain done years ago; the spot test are everywhere as the residents tried to find the right color.

However, in the end didn't like any? and just covered it up with carpet.

Suddenly, now I have to deal with the sludge?

I do read your other threads and laugh on occasion; just not this one.

kv

 

Sanding off is a fraccing term for plugging up the well with your propant sand.

If that happens most often a coil tubing rig has to come in and bore the sand out before fraccing can continue.

I never claimed every thread I made would please everyone every time.
Typically I just aim for pleasing myself and call it good enough.

 

Just remember, the mods are watching, lurking, waiting...

 

Just remember, the mods are watching, lurking, waiting...

And they have itchy trigger fingers...

 

So anyway back to some info from the inside of fraccing.

Given I had mentioned 'sanding off' a few posts ago I should elaborate some on that.

Sanding off is when the well gets plugged up with the proppant that we are pushing into formation. It's not always a real bad thing to have happens but it can be if it cant be cleared by flowing back the well for a while.

Typically what can cause it is either operator error, mechanical breakdown or formation tightness. Operator error can come from either someone misunderstanding what they were told to do while adding sand to the fluids or from programming the wrong numbers into the computer systems like putting 15 pound mix in for a stage instead of 1.5 pound mix. We call that 'fat fingering'.
Other common operator error related causes can be from the operators not watching the well back pressures close enough and not reacting to a formation pressure changes.

Most often it comes from running at high proppant and fluid flow rates and having a formation start to tighten up quickly. Being we have a pressure limit on the system that relates to how much pressure the well casing can handle if the formation tightens up the pressures will go too high and either the safety interlocks will shut the pumps down or the pop off valve will open and start dumping the fluids to a a tank.
Our typical upper limits are set at around 8500 - 9500 PSI with a flow rate up to around 50 - 60 bbls a minute. Rarely do we ever go above the 9500 PSI limit but its not uncommon to push a flow rate up well over the 60 bbl/minute if a formation is opening up easy.

If the operators are on top of things typically they will reduce the flow rates to keep the pressures under the maximum allowed level. If not the well sands off and the main company men from whatever oil company who is leasing the well site and paying the bills come over and everyone gets a talking too about not paying attention or worse. If they are on top of things we can go from a 50 - 60 bbl a minute flow rate to only a few in a matter of seconds.

To fix a sand off the simplest method is to first try and flow back the well which is just as it sounds and we let the well push some of the water and sand mix back up to the surface to try and clear the blockage. Most of the time this will clear out a blockage in a few tens of minutes. Other times they may try doing this for several days before giving up. If that point is reached we have to rig down all of our gear around the wellhead and a coil tubing rig has to come in and drill the blockage out. If that happens we can be off the well for a week or more.

As tech support and not fracc crew when that happens we will do what maintenance we can and then go back to man camp and hang out. A few times I have stayed at camp for several days doing nothing but eating and sleeping while still getting paid so for me a sand off is not all that bad of thing to have to deal with. It's also why my department tries to keep all of our equipment in top running condition just so that if we get a few days of down time we don't have much if any major service work to take care of before we get to go back to camp.

 

Interesting. Thanks!

 

Looks like they put the cork in our oil fields for the time being. Massive shutdowns and layoffs around the area this week with the majority of us who are not out in the fields this week finishing the remaining work now being the first to get laid off.

Me included with the majority of the remaining people to follow shortly behind once the last bit of clean up and putting equipment into long term standby mode is done.

Right now I am rather appreciating that I own everything I have outright and have every bill paid off plus have a good deal of reserves banked up at the moment.
It's almost scary to see how many of the people around me are living paycheck to paycheck plus have a mountain of debt over their heads yet almost nothing to show in return despite the insane take home pay we were making.

Oh well 6+ months of vacation time here I come!

(I hope.)

 

Good luck. Hope the fields come back online soon.

 

I figured something was up today when I went to work and the main gates were closed on a week day and the combinations to all the doors on the building had been changed.

Way too quiet in the shop areas too. The only real work going on today was some of the senior crew washing equipment down. That right there seemed suspicious being those guys never have to do dirty work. Turned out their crews were dismissed already and they were demoted to work hand status now so I suspect that once the clean up work is done they too will be hitting the street.

 

Looks like they put the cork in our oil fields for the time being. Massive shutdowns and layoffs around the area this week with the majority of us who are not out in the fields this week finishing the remaining work now being the first to get laid off.

Me included with the majority of the remaining people to follow shortly behind once the last bit of clean up and putting equipment into long term standby mode is done.

Right now I am rather appreciating that I own everything I have outright and have every bill paid off plus have a good deal of reserves banked up at the moment.
It's almost scary to see how many of the people around me are living paycheck to paycheck plus have a mountain of debt over their heads yet almost nothing to show in return despite the insane take home pay we were making.

Oh well 6+ months of vacation time here I come!

(I hope.)

I hear you. While there's no such thing as a guaranteed job (tenured faculty or government employee can sure come close), many fields are far more volatile than others and for people that work in those fields not to plan for the ups and downs is highly negligent. I've known lots of people that, through planning well beforehand, leverage the volatility. They know that there will be extended periods between contracts so they make sure that they have one or two years of basic expenses banked and, because they live absolutely debt free, it doesn't take that much to cover basic expenses for two year. They then have money set aside so that they can really use the gaps to take one or two major vacations and to upgrade their skills by taking some college courses or some specialized training. Those folks, by and large, lead very stress free lives. That's the path I've tried to follow (and was very much in that position for a number of years). I can't say that I'm there now, but only having modest mortgage debt has been a godsend over the past three years and allowed me to pursue opportunities, most of which have not panned out, that otherwise would simply not have been possible.

Getting back on topic, it would appear that the break even numbers being bandied about in the $51/bbl range might actually have been pretty close to the mark.

It looks like the ride is very possibly over and things will drift up once the surplus supplies start dwindling (and even quicker since so much is based on speculation and expectation). I still suspect that they won't go back up to where they were because oil prices don't have to rise too much before those capped wells become profitable again. Hence they are going to act as a price regulator for some time to come.

 

I can't say that I'm there now, but only having modest mortgage debt has been a godsend...

Some financial "advisors" insist it is advantageous to carry a a sizable mortgage into retirement. That to me is nuts!

 

Some financial "advisors" insist it is advantageous to carry a a sizable mortgage into retirement. That to me is nuts!

There's a school of thought that says to carry as much credit card and other unsecured debt as you can (without harming the all-important FICO score) because if things turn bad you can forestall creditors by pointing out how on-the-verge of bankruptcy you are and, if they turn worse, you get that much more of a "help" by actually filing.

I've seen so many financial advisors who, literally, do not comprehend that multiplication is commutative. So they just parrot what they are told and lack the ability to analyze it. Even the ones that can, ONLY look at the math and seldom consider the risk, the emotion, the peace of mind, or other non-numerical considerations.

 

There's a school of thought that says to carry as much credit card and other unsecured debt as you can (service).

That's the first time I've seen this in print. Everybody I have spoken to just thinks I'm insulting my ex-wife when I say she adhered to that practice.

 

Actually, there is some logic to that argument.
As long as inflation rate is positive you are paying off old debt with new money that is growing faster than your debt.

High inflation rates benefit people with debt.
Deflation benefits people holding cash.

That is how governments and business operate.
(btw, I don't buy into that model.)

 

Yea that seems to be sort of my wife's thought as well. Bury yourself under enough debt and you become to valuable of loss to the creditors for them to let go of you.

Now me on the other hand when it comes to employers I'm usually about the first they let go simply because I have more than enough of a personal fallback cushion in place that for em to go I probably wont even be going out with any bad feeling against them.

I was already told on my layoff meeting that I am on the short list of first call backs should any work come up again.
Dammit.
They wont even let a guy feel that he is off the employment hook with a right proper layoff either.. How twisted it that?

Dang. It's like being told, "Hey, don't screw up or you might get let go." but when they let you go they turn around and slap you with, "Hey, don't get too comfy with being unemployed. We might just call you back to work one of these days."