Page 10 - NorthAmOil Week 03
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NorthAmOil PROJECTS & COMPANIES NorthAmOil
Evolution Well Services wins electric fracking contract
US
TEXAS-BASED Evolution Well Services announced this week that it had struck a two- year deal to provide electric hydraulic fracturing services to a “leading” unnamed shale producer. The electric fracking services the company will provide under the contract will replace die- sel-powered generators with power generated by turbines that use natural gas produced on site as fuel.
News of the contract comes as oil and gas producers are increasingly publicising the steps they are taking to make their operations more environmentally friendly. While Evolution did not specify the location where it would provide its services, the announcement comes as shale regions struggle with a glut of gas production. In dry gas regions, this is making it increasingly less profitable to drill, while in oil-rich regions, asso- ciated gas output is causing additional headaches given a lack of takeaway capacity. Indeed, flaring of associated gas in the Permian Basin has risen to new highs, and various ways of addressing this
problem are being examined. And using associ- ated gas production to power electric fracking has emerged as one potential option for dealing with excess gas.
“Our clients are facing increasing pressure to perform more economical and sustainable completion operations on their assets,” Evolu- tion’s vice-president of technology and market- ing, Carrie Murtland, said in a statement. “This agreement illustrates acknowledgment by yet another leading E&P company that our technol- ogyachievesbothofthesegoals.”
Evolution says that using locally produced natural gas as a fuel source instead of conven- tional diesel fuel results in a total of 5.5mn gallons (21mn litres) per year of diesel being conserved by each fleet. “Not only does this yield cost savings of up to $1.5mn per month with each fleet; it also benefits the local com- munity and environment due to the clean- er-burning nature of natural gas,” the company said in its statement.
Enterprise starts up new Permian gas-processing plant
PERMIAN BASIN
ENTERPRISE Products Partners announced this week that its Mentone cryogenic gas-pro- cessing plant in the prolific Permian Basin had been brought into service. The plant is located in Texas’ Loving County, in the Permian’s Delaware sub-basin. It has the capacity to process 300mn cubic feet (8.5mn cubic metres) per day of nat- ural gas, and extract more than 40,000 barrels per day (bpd) of natural gas liquids (NGLs). The facility is supported by a long-term acreage ded- ication agreement, Enterprise said in a January 21 statement.
Mentone is the company’s seventh gas-pro- cessing plant in the Delaware Basin and increases its total Permian capacity to over 1.6bn cubic feet (45 mcm) per day of gas processing and more than 250,000 bpd of NGL extraction. “These assets provide critical infrastructure to facilitate growing natural gas and NGL production in the region, which is expected to increase by more than60%overthenextfiveyears,”saidtheexec- utive vice-president and chief commercial officer of Enterprise’s general partner, Brent Secrest.
“The addition of Mentone also enhances access to our fully integrated midstream network of assets linking producers in the Delaware Basin to domestic and international demand,” he added.
Enterprise has also built 66 miles (106km) of large-diameter gathering and residue pipelines and expanded compression capabilities that link Mentone to its NGL and Texas Intrastate gas pipeline networks, the company said. Enterprise is in the process of building 300,000 bpd of frac- tionation capacity at its Mont Belvieu complex in order to accommodate the growth in NGLs.
The company’s announcement comes as midstream operators are scrambling to provide additional gas-gathering and processing capac- ity in the Permian, where gas is a by-product of oil drilling. Efforts to boost NGL infrastructure are also underway. In a separate statement last week, Enterprise said it had recently brought an isobutane dehydrogenation (iBDH) plant into servicenearMontBelvieu,withvolumesatthe facility anticipated to continue ramping up over the course of the rest of this month.
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w w w. N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 03 22•January•2020
