What Does Proppants Mean?
Proppants are additives added todrilling fluidduring thehydraulic fracturingprocess or fracking to keep the fractures open. A proppant can be sand or other gritty material that suspends in water-based or other types of drilling fluid.
The proppant material can be manmade or naturally occurring and come in a number of different sizes for different wellbore situations. It is carefully sorted for size and roundness in order to increase the efficiency of production from the reservoir.
Trenchlesspedia Explains Proppants
The increase in the production of oil and natural gas wells with the use of hydraulic fracturing has increased the demand for proppant material. Proppant materials can be classified into three groups namely, rounded silica sand, gravel and resin-coated sand, and synthetic ceramic materials.
The proppant is used in the fracking process for the production of hydrocarbons in non-conventional reservoirs. Fracking is carried out by injecting high-pressure fluid containing about 95% water, 0.5% additives and 4.5% proppant. When the fracture fluid is injected, the generated fractures expand as the proppant fills them and keeps them open.
