2024: Trimul-frac tour with illegal aquifer frac’er Encana/Ovintiv
Ovintiv Cites ‘Trimul-frac’ Completions as Driving Improved Efficiency in Permian Natural Gas, Oil Production by Andrew Baker, November 15, 2023, Daily Gas Price Index in Natural Gas Intel
Simultaneous fracturing, aka simul-frac technology, is so last year, according to Denver-based Ovintiv Inc.
Ovintiv’s Permian Basin team has taken the well completions technique “one step further,” according to CEO Brendan McCracken. “We are stockpiling wet sand onsite from our local mines and completing three wells with a single frac spread at the same time, a technique we’ve dubbed ‘Trimul-frac,’” McCracken said during the firm’s third quarter earnings call.
“Trimul-frac is reducing cycle time and saving costs,” the CEO continued. “About a quarter of our Permian wells in 2023 will be completed with this technology, and we expect to use it on more than half of our program next year.
“The results are impressive.”
McCracken cited that, “on our recent Driftwood pad, we saved an additional $125,000 per well when compared to simul-frac. We were also able to bring the pad online sooner with our increased efficiencies, achieving almost 4,200 feet of completed lateral per day.”
According to McCracken, “With the pad online sooner, it will have an incremental 55 production days in 2023, directly increasing our capital efficiency. This step change in efficiency is easy to observe, but difficult to replicate and is unmatched in the industry today.”
Ovintiv is raising its capital expenditures (capex) and production guidance for full-year 2023 following strong results across its multi-basin portfolio.
The independent operates across the Permian, Anadarko and Uinta basins, as well as the Montney Shale in Western Canada.
Since 2021, Ovintiv has added more than 1,500 premium drilling locations to its inventory, McCracken told analysts.
Ovintiv is targeting full-year 2023 production of 550-560,000 boe/d, including 1.615-1.63 Bcf/d natural gas. This is up from a previous gas forecast of 1.575-1.625 Bcf/d.
The gains in part follow Ovintiv’s $4.3 billion acquisition in June of assets in the Permian’s Midland sub-basin from companies managed by private equity giant EnCap Investments LP.
“Full-year production guidance was increased due to strong well productivity across the portfolio and faster than expected integration of recently acquired Permian assets,” management said. “Full year capital efficiency is expected to improve by approximately 6% compared to the guidance issued following the completion of the Permian asset acquisition in June.”
Capex for this year is expected to range from $2.745 to $2.785 billion, up from previous guidance of $2.68-2.85 billion. In 2024, capex is expected to be $2.1-2.5 billion.
“Although much of the market’s focus this year has been on our Permian outperformance, each basin in our portfolio is contributing to our total outperformance,” McCracken said. “Across the company, we continue to innovate and find efficiencies that reduce cycle times, lower costs and deliver leading well productivity.”
Montney Options
In Canada, McCracken highlighted that “we have a Montney oil asset with a deep premium oil inventory, and then we have a Montney gas asset with an extremely deep premium inventory on the gas side.”
While near-term capital will be deployed to the oil window, McCracken said, “definitely down the road, we see the opportunity for the Montney gas to create a lot of value for our shareholders.”
He added, “that’s something…we’ve been exploring to get market access to better price environments for the Montney.”
He explained, “we’ve got a deep transportation portfolio that persists” beyond 2025 “that lets us stay outside of the AECO environment. And of course, we’re exploring the potential for LNG exposure down the road.”
In the Lower 48, COO Greg Givens said that after pulling back the Anadarko program earlier in the year because of weak natural gas and natural gas liquids prices, the team was “patient and opportunistic in securing a competitively priced” hydraulic fracturing crew to complete four remaining drilled but uncompleted wells in the basin.
“The Anadarko continues to be a strong free cash flow generating asset in 2023 and is a premier multi-product option in our portfolio,” said Givens.
Output in the third quarter averaged 571,800 boe/d, including 1.625 Bcf/d natural gas, which was at the top end of quarterly guidance. This compares with gas production of 1.5 Bcf/d in 3Q2022.
Ovintiv’s Canada and U.S. operations supplied 1.12 Bcf/d and 508 MMcf/d of natural gas output in 3Q2023, respectively.
Natural gas revenues declined by $564 million year/year, primarily because of the decline in prices from a year ago. Realized gas prices, excluding the impact of hedges, averaged $2.33/Mcf, down from $6.60. The average realized price after hedging effects was $2.51.
The decline reflected lower prices year/year at the New York Mercantile Exchange, down 69%, along with reduced prices at the Canadian gas hubs Dawn, also down 69%, and AECO, down 59%.
Ovintiv reported net income of $406 million ($1.47/share) for the third quarter, versus a profit of $1.19 billion ($4.63) in the same period last year. Total revenue fell to $2.65 billion from $3.55 billion.
Refer also to:
2019: Encana’s Supersize Spatial Intensity Frac Cube Experiment Fails
…
As the name suggests, frac hits can be a violent affair as they are known to be strong enough to damage production tubing, casing, and even wellheads.
Claudio Virues, a senior reservoir engineer with CNOOC Nexen, said frac hits have become a top concern in the shale business because they can affect several wells on a pad, along with those on nearby pads too. Based on his experiences in Canada and in south Texas, the question is no longer if a frac hit will happen, but how bad will it be.But of course, frac’ing has never damaged a water well or contaminated water, it’s “perfectly safe.” In fact, the oil and gas industry in its entirety has never damaged a water well or contaminated water anywhere in the world, ever.
…
2016: Meet “Candidatus Frackibacter,” New type of bacteria found flourishing inside hydraulic fracturing wellsIndustry and its enabling non-regulating regulators knew this, yet when water wells are suddenly grossly contaminated after Encana/Ovintiv illegally frac’s the aquifers that supply those water wells, it’s natures fault via bacteria, and if not nature, then, slovenly water well owners, like me (yet, they and their rich masters were so afraid of me and my speaking out – a sin in oil and gas worshipping Alberta – they sent Steve Harper‘s anti-terrorist squad to try to terrorise me silent and into dropping my lawsuit).
2013: Canada steps up well monitoring to try to avoid ‘frack hits’
2012: Yet another frac incident in Alberta that contaminated groundwater
…
“There is no amount of regulation that can overcome human error,” said Alberta’s Energy Resources Conservation Board (ERCB) spokesman Darin Barter. ERCB released an investigation report that cites inadequate management of risks as one of the main causes of a September 2011 accident that contaminated groundwater with toxic hydraulic fracturing chemicals, including the cancer causing agent known as BTEX (benzene, toulene, ethylbenzene, and xylene). The incident occurred near Grande Prairie in northern Alberta when Crew Energy and GasFrac Energy Services workers failed to “recognize and properly assess a number of issues that led to the perforation and fracturing above the base of groundwater protection,” according to the report. Workers accidentally fracked directly into an underground water table after a series of mishandled errors resulted in a massively bungled frack job that injected 42 cubic metres of unrecoverable propane gel into an aquifer some 136 metres below ground.
…
The accident, documented in detail in ERCB’s 19-page report, violated the favoured gas industry assurance that fracking will never occur above base groundwater depths. Oil and gas industry lobby group Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) insists on its public relations website morefactslessfriction.ca that fracking production pipes are “bound by rock and several hundred meters below the deepest fresh water aquifers.” [Natural Resources Canada] writes that “hydraulic fracturing is permitted only well below the deepest freshwater aquifers.”
…
Source: Frack Poker (The Biggest Gambling Game in Canada) by BC Tap Water Alliance
2012 Spring: What are the impacts on water by the ERCB (prev EUB now AER)
There has not been a documented case of direct contamination due to hydraulic fracturing in Alberta.
2012: Regulators say hydraulic fracturing may have caused oil spill on farm near Innisfail
Frac fluid and oil was observed (by Alberta Surface Rights Group Board members) dripping off nearby trees
2011: Caltex/Crew/Gasfrac know they frac’d and contaminted drinking water aquifer south of Grand Prairie; ERCB knows too.
2010:
Photo above by FrackingCanada: Schlumberger ignorantly and brutally frac’ing in Alberta
2004: Shallow frac hits/incidents in Alberta
Above from EUB library, no longer publicly accessible
But, of course, that white smoke coming off my water when I freshly poured it for my dogs was not nitrogen from Encana/Ovintiv’s repeat nitrogen (and other mystery frac additives) fracs directly and illegally into the aquifers that supply my well. It was God saying “Hello” as my dogs growled and backed away from their water bowl in revulsion and I stood in shock watching.
2005: Encana/Ovintiv’s illegal frac’s directly into Rosebud’s drinking water aquifers, schematic from the company’s hydrgeological experts studying what went wrong with local water wells, and of course, blaming nature for the brute force damages to our water wells
EnCana’s Multiple Shallow Fracs into Fresh Water Aquifers at Rosebud, Alberta, March 2004
Source: EnCana Corporation Site Investigation Report by Hydrogeological Consultants Ltd., January 2005
2004: Below: Encana’s frac data filed with AER (then EUB) for the above 5-14-27-22-W4M gas well that illegally frac’d Rosebud’s drinking water aquifers. The company fucked up so badly, they performed a cement squeeze to try to stop the water production at that gas well, and fucked up the squeeze too (Ernst obtained via 2008 FOIP request):
2003: Encana data (publicly available on Alberta’s groundwater database, data accessed by Ernst) showing the company intentionally perforated into multiple fresh water Rosebud aquifers so as to frac them:
“Perforations performed with nitrogen gas. Objective was to obtain coal bed methane production.”
And, Encana’s own pre-frac data filed at the water database for that well, says “Gas Present” No” just like the historic records filed with Alberta’s water regulator said for my water well before Encana’s illegal fracs:
