American Oil and Gas Reporter - PBIOS 2014 Official Program Guide - 191

Permian Basin Reports
Upstream

for the feed system, so you can replace
the feed system and it's like new," Erickson
says, noting that despite the lightweight
and self-contained design, the rigs feature
a heavy-duty derrick and top-head drive,
advanced pipe handling, and a powerful
carrier for enhanced mobility.
'New Look' Oil Patch
Terry Garrett, president of Garrett
Consultants, has 35 years of experience
in Permian Basin drilling, completions
and workovers, and has designed and supervised the construction and rig-up of
more than 250 rigs to drilling depths of
35,000 feet. He says horizontal drilling
and multistage slickwater fracs are the
biggest changes in the "new" Permian,
but adds that operators' bottom-line drilling
goals are fundamentally the same.
"New mud motors, drilling fluids and
bits have increased drilling times, but a
successful well is about more than how
fast the penetration rate is," he states.
"That is true whether it is a day-work,
footage, or turnkey contract."
Garrett, who is the fourth generation
of his family in the drilling business,
says the focus should be on getting a
quality borehole drilled to total depth as
designed with minimal rig time spent
getting in and out of the hole.
"You can drill a mile of hole in a day,
but if it takes three weeks to get in and
out of the hole, drilling the formation at
that speed is not going to matter much,"
he remarks.
While horizontal pad drilling in tight
formations may be new to the Permian, the
geology is the same, Garrett points out.
"We are not drilling through anything horizontally we haven't already drilled through
vertically. A formation may get a new
name, but the Wolfcamp is the same formation it always has been," he maintains.
Horizontal pad drilling is proving highly effective at increasing operational efficiencies, but from a drilling perspective,
the basic well construction process is the
same as a single-well location, Garrett
goes on. "It is a bigger location with
more wells, but you can drill only one
well at a time," he reasons.
Manpower And Equipment
Largely because of booming oil and
gas activity, unemployment rates in the

Efficiency-minded Permian Basin operators are using lightweight, hydraulic
top-drive rigs to drill surface holes and
preset casing in half the time it takes
larger drilling rigs. Introduced in the
Marcellus Shale, the two-rig drilling
technique migrated to the Permian
Basin, where one operator reported savings of $14,050 a hole.

Permian Basin are among the lowest in
the nation. According to the Texas Workforce Commission, the unemployment
rate in 17 basin counties averaged only
3.5 percent in July, with the oil and gas
industry as the major job creator. While
a huge plus for the regional economy,
the robust demand for qualified workers
does create a challenge, puts in Pat Drennon, chief executive officer of Sierra
Hamilton.
"The big problem is people," he avers.
"What we are seeing, and what the people
we work for are telling us, is it's not
equipment, it's people."
In the past, when the vast majority of
conventional wells drilled in the Permian
Basin were vertical, a frac crew might
arrive at a job site at 4 a.m. and be home
by 4 p.m., Drennon reflects. A big job at
the time may have involved 150,000250,000 pounds of proppant and fewer

Midstream

Downstream

than 100,000 gallons of fluid.
Even when energy companies drilled
horizontally in the basin 20 years ago, he
says most of the wells were in carbonate
rock, such as the Devonian. Frac jobs
still took only a day or so. At that time,
laterals were drilled to fit the acreage
and could end parallel to the hydraulic
fracture orientation, he says, and there
may have been only two or three frac
stages.
But once the industry discovered that
fracturing perpendicular to the lateral
was more effective and that it was more
productive to increase the number of frac
stages, the hours changed for frac crews,
Drennon says.
"It started out that a 'bunch' was 10
(frac stages), and then a bunch was 20,
and now you are seeing 50 discreet fracs
placed in laterals that are less than a mile
long," Drennon muses.
Nowadays, it is not unusual for a frac
crew to be in the field for 10 days or
even two weeks at a time for each well,
Drennon points out.
Meanwhile, the horsepower on location
has multiplied also, along with the amount
of proppant and fluid being pumped. He
says it's not unusual to see 3 million or 4
million pounds of sand pumped with a
proportionate amount of fluid.
And while downhole supplies such as
tubing and surface equipment such as
tank batteries and heater-treaters appear
to be in good supply, Drennon says the
big problem is finding capable workers.
There isn't a shortage of equipment, but
there is a shortage of experienced personnel to work with that equipment, he
qualifies, pointing to truck drivers as an
example. "We have enough trucks, but a
shortage of truck drivers is leading to delays in getting equipment and tubing to
well sites," he reflects.
❒

Founding Father
The 1954 oil show was dedicated
to Jerry Wade Debenport, the "father
of the oil show." Debenport, then
general manager of the Odessa Area
Chamber of Commerce, and conceived of the idea for an "oil fair"
that ultimately culminated in the
PBIOS.
OCTOBER PBIOS 2014 191

American Oil and Gas Reporter - PBIOS 2014 Official Program Guide

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