PROPPANT SHORTAGE

Proppants: Where in the World

Robin Beckwith, JPT/JPT Online Staff Writer

With the rise in hydraulic fracturing ment in processing and material han- proppant—being performed per well to
over the past decade has come a steep dling facilities. maximize production. For example, a
climb in proppant demand. Global sup- The price proppant manufacturers typical Barnett Shale well would in the
plies are currently tight. The number can charge must be figured in to the early 2000s have consumed approxi-
of proppant suppliers worldwide has overall cost of producing a well, which mately 300,000 lbs of proppant. The
increased since 2000 from a handful in the Bakken, for example, can be longer horizontal wells drilled today,
to well over 50 sand, ceramic prop- approximately USD 6 million, with produced with often 20 or more stages,
pant, and resin-coat producers. The proppant representing about 5% of well might consume 3 to 5 million lbs.
estimated amount of proppant used has costs. Since a majority of proppant is Still, proppant supplier margins are
grown tenfold since 2000, when little currently used in fracturing unconven- relatively slim, requiring the steady,
more than 3 billion lbs was supplied, tional gas wells, depressed natural gas high-quality production and distribu-
according to research by PropTester and prices tend to keep a cap on the prices tion of large volumes to sustain a profit-
Kelrik. Circumstances appear favorable proppant suppliers can demand. able enterprise.
for those seeking to enter the market. However, as hydraulically fractured
However, gearing up to take advan- wells proliferate, a growing body of Proppants: Earth to Earth
tage of these propitious conditions rep- data is continually being generated to The journey of an individual grain
resents a daunting task, requiring coor- aid in the creation of targeted frac- or bead of proppant is a circular one,
dination of complex logistics, material ture stimulation plans, with more making its way from its origins as a
resources, and processing knowledge, highly engineered stages—boosting substance mined from the Earth to its
as well as a substantial capital invest- the demand for greater volumes of final destination deep within the Earth
in the far reaches of the filigree-like or
dendritically shaped fractures emanat-
ing from the long horizontal bore-
hole. It is the only substance operators
want to remain downhole following a
successful hydraulic fracturing treat-
ment and performs the vital function
of propping open the fractured forma-
tion to promote the economic flow—or
conductivity—of hydrocarbons in the
ensuing months and years over the
well’s productive life.
The primary order of business for a
proppant facility, therefore, is choosing
the optimum location—preferably one
close to both raw material supply and
enduser. The immediate proximity of
railcar and possibly barge transport is
critical, as well as a good road system
and the availability of a reliable truck-
ing fleet.

The Ubiquitous Silica Sand

By far the dominant proppant is silica
sand, made up of ancient, weathered
St. Peter sandstone deposit and mine, Wisconsin. Photo courtesy: Kelrik. quartz—the most common mineral in

36 JPT • APRIL 2011

PROPPANT SHORTAGE

20/40 Northern White fracturing sand. Photo cour- 20/40 SLC resin-coated sand. Photo courtesy: Santrol
tesy: Santrol Proppants. Proppants.

the Earth’s continental crust. Unlike Coarser proppants, such as 16/30 and zontal gas wells such as those in the
common sand, which often feels grit- 20/40, can be more difficult to effec- Barnett, Fayetteville, Haynesville, and
ty when rubbed between the fingers, tively place in fractures due to their Marcellus shales.
sand used as a proppant tends to roll size and higher settling rates compared Industrial silica sand has a wide
to the touch as a result of its round, to, for example, 40/70 and 100 mesh. range of uses, and is commonly used
spherical shape and tightly graded par- According to Brian Olmen, owner of in the metal casting industry to make
ticle distribution. Kelrik, the supply outlook for high- cores and molds, but particularly in
Sand quality is a function of both quality coarse sands is severely strained the manufacture of various types of
deposit and processing. Grain size is in 2011, largely due to a resurgence in glass—including solar energy collect-
critical, as any given proppant must oil and liquid-rich drilling activity in ing panels—as well as in the creation of
reliably fall within certain mesh ranges, areas such as the Bakken, Eagle Ford, highly flame-resistant industrial molds
subject to downhole conditions and and Permian Basin. and construction materials for the
completion design. The smaller the “Sand is not an engineered product, kilns used in the manufacture of sin-
number, the coarser the grain. The vast but rather a natural mineral subject to tered ceramic and bauxite proppants.
majority of grains range from 12 to deposit yield and processing efficiency,” Companies with established sources
140 mesh and include standard sizes says Olmen. “The percentage of grains of high-quality silica, with decades of
such as 12/20, 16/30, 20/40, 30/50, and coarser than 40 mesh in many quality experience in manipulating this raw
40/70 whereby 90% of the product falls deposits is often less than 20%, if any.” material, have commonly added or
between the designated sieve sizes. This is not a new challenge as, histor- or modified production facilities to
Generally, coarser proppant allows ically, 20/40 is the single most demand- increase proppant capacity over the
for higher flow capacity due to the ed gradation. years. These include the industrial giant
larger pore spaces between grains. The increasing use of 40/70 and Sibelco Group, whose Unimin division
However, it may break down or crush finer 100 mesh sands beginning in has a stated annual production capacity
more readily under stress due to the 2001—rising particularly since 2006— in excess of 10 billion lbs making it the
relatively fewer grain-to-grain contact is a rather new development resulting largest supplier of proppant worldwide.
points to bear the stress often incurred from the rise in high-volume slickwa- According to Olmen, the industrial
in deep oil- and gas-bearing formations. ter fracturing of unconventional hori- frac sand industry has fundamentally

38 JPT • APRIL 2011

 for ceramic proppants—is dominated
by Santrol and Momentive.
Santrol Proppants, part of Fairmount
Minerals, one of the largest producers
of industrial sand in the US, announced
early this year the sizable expansion
of its RCP facility in Roff, Oklahoma,
scheduled for completion late 2011,
with an increased annual capacity of
500,000 US tons. “The facility is close
to a number of very active shale plays,”
says Pat Okell, Santrol’s executive vice
president and general manager, “and
serves as a convenient transportation
hub thanks to the number of trucking
and rail options available.”
Momentive (formerly known as
Hexion) is a specialty chemical compa-
ny, with control over the materials used
in creating the high-strength curable
phenolic coating for its sand-, bauxite-,
and ceramic-substrate proppants. The
company expanded its current trans-
load facility in Cleburne, Texas, in 2010
into a proppant coating plant to better
meet the demand for its RCPs.
Startup company, Patriot Proppants,
added RCP operations in Shreveport,
Louisiana, in 2010 and is completing
another facility in Guion, Arkansas, this
year. Patriot’s two-line Shreveport facil-
ity was built on 27 acres in the 260-acre
South Webster Industrial District park.
The industrial park’s nearby rail line and
the emerging Fayetteville, Haynesville,
CARBOEconoprop 20/40, a high-conductivity, lightweight ceramic prop- Barnett, and Eagle Ford shales are what
pant from CARBO Ceramics. lured Patriot to Webster Parish, com-
pany president Jason Renkes says. Rail
changed in the last five years. While flow of proppant fines into the bore- access is essential in delivery of the raw
in 2006, the vast majority of frac sand hole. In addition, a curable resin coated and finished product, and Interstate
and sand substrate for resin coating was both on sand and ceramic proppant 20 and Highway 371 also are “perfect
produced by four primary companies, is also used whereby the resin-coated routes” to get the finished product to
now more than 40 industrial sand pro- proppant (RCP) grains bond together market, he says. A typical railcar holds
ducers process frac sand from nearly when subject to downhole pressure and approximately 100 tons (200,000 lbs)
100 facilities worldwide. In 2010, close temperature to minimize or prevent of sand. A 1-million-lb fracturing job
to 50% of sand-based proppants were proppant flowback therefore requires five railroad cars of
supplied by either newly established or Largely because silica substrate is sand, and a 5-million-lb job requires
nontraditional frac sand suppliers, with readily available and relatively inex- 25 railroad cars of sand. With few wells
several more operations pending. pensive, the RCP market is sharply located near rail lines, the proppant
increasing. According to figures shared eventually requires trucking to the site.
The Rise in Resin-Coated by PropTester and Kelrik, from 1988 Like the frac sand market, several
Proppant to 2010 RCP achieved a 23.16% com- other new operations have emerged to
According to Chris Coker, president of pound annual growth rate (CAGR). vie for a share of the growing RCP mar-
Oxane, coating silica sand with resin However, it was not until 2005 that total ket, including Atlas Resin Proppants
has two principal functions: The first usage finally exceeded the 1-billion-lb in Wisconsin, Southern Precision
is to improve the proppant’s effective benchmark. From 2006 through 2010, Sands in Alabama, CRS Proppants in
strength, by spreading the pressure load RCP experienced a 26.64% CAGR, the Louisiana, and even ceramic-proppant
more uniformly. The second is to trap highest of any proppant type. giant CARBO, with a facility in New
pieces of proppant broken under high The present RCP market—whose Iberia, Louisiana, that opened in 2010
downhole pressure, thus preventing the volumes are roughly the same as those and another planned for 2011.

JPT • APRIL 2011 39

PROPPANT SHORTAGE

Unlike frac sand and RCP which

are primarily North American-based
industries, ceramic proppant manufac-
turers are distributed the world over: In
addition to CARBO and Saint-Gobain’s
US and international operations, there
are Brazil’s Mineração Curimbaba
Group, Russia’s producers Fores and
Borovichi, and a host of existing and
pending manufacturers in the Far East,
particularly China.
CARBO’s Toomsboro, Georgia,
facility is situated close to sources
of kaolin, which is trucked in on a
continuous basis to feed the plant’s
24/7 operation. Its brand-new line 3
just added 250 million lbs per year of
proppant to the marketplace, and a
fourth line, currently being construct-
ed, under the design and coordination
of KBR, will add the same amount
by late 2011. According to CARBO
Ceramics’ Toomsboro plant manag-
A look into the control center at CARBO’s manufacturing plant in er Roger Riffey, the 500-million-lb
McIntyre, Georgia, shows computer-automated process control and additional capacity represents overall
views from cameras inside the kiln. Photo by Robin Beckwith.
growth of 40% for CARBO, bringing
its total global capacity to approxi-
Engineering the Proppant: France, the UK, Iran, Germany, India, mately 1.75 billion lbs per year.
Sintered Ceramic and Bauxite Australia, Korea, China, the Czech Houston-based Oxane was formed
Proppant manufactured from a type Republic, and the US. Both bauxite in 2002 to commercialize nanomaterial
of ceramic material—generally either and kaolin are noted for their superior research performed at Rice University’s
nonmetallurgical bauxite or kaolin strength characteristics after undergo- department of civil and environmen-
clay—can be engineered to withstand ing a process called sintering. Sintering tal engineering and department of
high levels of downhole pressure, and occurs in high-temperature kilns that, chemistry. After examining hundreds
to achieve relatively uniform round- through baking bauxite or kaolin pow- of potential applications, they chose
ness, sphericity, and size. Bauxite is der that has been shake-formed into to focus on proppants because of the
an aluminum ore from which most specifically sized particles, decreases quantity consumed and the perceived
aluminum is extracted, found in the water content thereby changing opportunity to differentiate themselves
Australia, China, Brazil, Guinea, and the particles’ molecular structure, ren- from competitors.
India. Kaolin, one of the most common dering them more spherical and more “We’re strong because we’re ceramic,
minerals, is mined in Brazil, Bulgaria, uniformly dense. and we’re light because we’re hollow,”

When line 4 construction at CARBO’s Toomsboro,

Georgia, manufacturing facility is complete later
in 2011, ceramic proppant production will have A conveyor is feeding ore into the calciner unit at
increased 40% to 1.75 billion lbs in a 12-month span. CARBO’s manufacturing plant in McIntyre, Georgia.
Photo by Robin Beckwith. Photo by Robin Beckwith.

40 JPT • APRIL 2011

 Another engineered proppant start-
up, Nittany Extraction Technologies
Company (NETCo), is based on research
conducted at Penn State University’s
College of Earth and Mineral Sciences
and college of engineering. NETCo uses
waste material—including glass, alu-
mina silicate mine tailings, fly ash, and
metallurgical slags, as well as rock cut-
tings produced to the surface during oil
and gas drilling—in the manufacture of
high-performance proppants.
“Drawn by proximity to the Marcellus
Shale, we are using raw materials indig-
enous to Pennsylvania,” says John
Hellmann, professor of earth and min-
eral sciences at Penn State and one of
Nittany’s founders.
The company uses nanotechnology
to control the microstructure and crys-
Closeup of the conveyor at CARBO’s manufacturing plant in McIntyre, talline phase assemblage of its ceramic
Georgia. Photo by Robin Beckwith. proppant. It is developing relationships
with landfill, mining, and glass com-
explains Coker. “Our process produces Oxane’s Van Buren, Arkansas, plant panies and is currently in the process
very tight, near monodispersed size has one line fully operational 24/7, of batch testing, while gearing up to
distributions, with extremely round, with the capacity for as many as conduct 150-ton field testing by early
spherical particles.” six lines. this fall. JPT

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