Hydraulic fracturing is a stimulation treatment routinely performed on oil and gas wells in low-permeability reservoirs. Specially engineered fluids are pumped at high pressure and rate into the reservoir interval to be treated, causing a vertical fracture to open. The wings of the fracture extend away from the wellbore in opposing directions according to the natural stresses within the formation. Proppant, such as grains of sand of a particular size, is mixed with the treatment fluid to keep the fracture open when the treatment is complete. Hydraulic fracturing creates high-conductivity communication with a large area of formation and bypasses any damage that may exist in the near-wellbore area. Furthermore, hydraulic fracturing is used to increase the rate at which fluids, such as petroleum, water, or natural gas can be recovered from subterranean natural reservoirs. Reservoirs are typically porous sandstones, limestones or dolomite rocks, but also include “unconventional reservoirs” such as shale rock or coal beds. Hydraulic fracturing enables the extraction of natural gas and oil from rock formations deep below the earth's surface (e.g., generally 2,000-6,000 m (5,000-20,000 ft)), which is greatly below typical groundwater reservoir levels. At such depth, there may be insufficient permeability or reservoir pressure to allow natural gas and oil to flow from the rock into the wellbore at high economic return. Thus, creating conductive fractures in the rock is instrumental in extraction from naturally impermeable shale reservoirs.
A wide variety of hydraulic fracturing equipment is used in oil and natural gas fields, such as a slurry blender, one or more high-pressure, high-volume fracturing pumps and a monitoring unit. Additionally, associated equipment includes fracturing tanks, one or more units for storage and handling of proppant, high-pressure treating iron, a chemical additive unit (used to accurately monitor chemical addition), low-pressure flexible hoses, and many gauges and meters for flow rate, fluid density, and treating pressure. Fracturing equipment operates over a range of pressures and injection rates, and can reach up to 100 megapascals (15,000 psi) and 265 liters per second (9.4 cu ft/s) (100 barrels per minute).
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This summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts that are further described below in the detailed description. This summary is not intended to identify key or essential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended to be used as an aid in limiting the scope of the claimed subject matter.
In one aspect, the embodiments disclosed herein relate to a modular pumping pad skid. The modular pumping pad skid may include a base with one or more high pressure fluid conduits and one or more low pressure conduits. Additionally, two or more pumps may be removably fixed to the base, and fluidly connected to the high pressure fluid conduits and the low pressure conduits.
In other aspects, the embodiments disclosed herein relate to a system with one or more modular pumping pad skids. The one or more modular pumping pad skids may include: one or more high pressure fluid conduits within a base; one or more low pressure conduits within the base; and one or more pumps removably fixed to the base. The pumps may be fluidly connected to the high pressure fluid conduits and the low pressure conduits. Additionally, one or more power sources may be fluidly coupled to the one or more pumps, and the one or more power sources is configured to power the one or more pumps. A fluid manifold may be coupled to a well, and the one or more pumps is fluidly coupled to the fluid manifold. Further, the one or more pumps are configured to inject fluids into the well.
In yet another aspect, the embodiments disclosed herein relate to a method that may include powering a pump on a modular pumping pad skid with a power source via a hydraulic pressure conduit fluidly coupled to the pump; flowing a fluid through a low pressure conduit of the modular pumping pad skid; directing the fluid from the low pressure conduit to the pump; flowing the fluid from the pump to a high pressure fluid conduit; and injecting the fluid into a well via a fluid manifold fluidly coupled to the high pressure fluid conduit.
Other aspects and advantages will be apparent from the following description and the appended claims.
In one aspect, embodiments disclosed herein relate to a modular fracturing pump pad system. The modular fracturing pump pad system may also be interchangeably referred to as a modular pump skid system in the present disclosure. As used herein, the term “coupled” or “coupled to” or “connected” or “connected to” may indicate establishing either a direct or indirect connection, and is not limited to either unless expressly referenced as such. Wherever possible, like or identical reference numerals are used in the figures to identify common or the same elements. The figures are not necessarily to scale and certain features and certain views of the figures may be shown exaggerated in scale for purposes of clarification.
A modular pump skid system, according to embodiments herein, is a system in which the elements of fracturing pumps are modularized and deployed on connectable modular skids that can be secured together to a well site to form an interchangeable fracturing pump. The modular pump skid system elements are modularized in a way such that the conduit manifolds/flow functionality is made up when the modular pump skid systems are connected. Further, the modular pump skid system elements may be held on units having standardized uniform connections, such that different types of pump element units may be connected together using the same connection type. The reduction of using non-uniform connections that must be made up and pressure tested may significantly reduce the complexity, design, time, and weight of the system. Additionally, the modular pump skid system may be used to direct fluid produced from or injected into a well.
In some embodiments, a modular pump skid may be loaded onto a base and connected to other modular pump skids. In such embodiments, the base holding various components of the fracturing pump may be transported to a wellsite such that the equipment on the base (e.g., fluid conduits, pumps, valve manifolds, etc.) may all be pre-rigged and dropped on location in rigged-up condition. By using modular pump skids according to embodiments of the present disclosure for hydraulic fracturing wellbore operations, equipment may be pre-rigged and dropped on location in any condition, including ready-to-use, thereby reducing installation time in the field. According to embodiments of the present disclosure, a modular fracturing pump skid may include piping or a body having one or more flow paths formed therethrough to interconnect with other pumps skids or a fluid manifold. As used herein, fluids may refer to proppant, frac fluids, liquids, gases, and/or mixtures thereof. Other instruments and devices, including without limitation, sensors and various valves may be incorporated within a modular fracturing pump pad system.
Conventional fracturing pumps in the oil and gas industry typically consume a large amount of space and resources of a rig area. Conventional fracturing pumps may use elements that are individually designed and sized with pipes, flow lines, diesel engines, and other conduits being used to interconnect the conventional fracturing pumps to fracturing operations. Furthermore, pipes, flow lines, and other conduits being used to interconnect the conventional fracturing pumps are not uniform and take valuable time to make up and pressure test. Additionally, the sheer number of pipes, hoses, and other fluid connections represent safety hazards for on-site workers. This additional components needed to interconnect the conventional fracturing pumps adds to the weight, installation costs, and overall cost of the conventional fracturing pumps. However, using modular pump skids according to one or more embodiments of the present disclosure may overcome such challenges, as well as provide additional advantages over conventional fracturing pumps.
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In some embodiments, each modular pump skid (201a, 201b, 201c) may be placed adjacent to each other such that the fluid conduits (204, 206, 208a, 208b) and pumps 210 of each modular pump skid (201a, 201b, 201c) are in fluid communication. As shown in
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In one or more embodiments, a frac blender 307 may provide hydraulic blended pressure (e.g., 100-120 PSI) to the low-pressure fluid conduit 306, which may then be distributed to the first pump 310a and the second pump 310b. From the first pump 310a and the second pump 310b, a treated pressure (e.g., 15 k PSI) may exit the modular pump skid 301 through the high-pressure fluid conduit 304.
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According to embodiments of the present disclosure, the modular pump skid systems may be configured to a pressure rating of any job requirement. Specifically, a main pressure rating limitation of the modular pump skid system may correspond with the wellheads, as known in the art. Furthermore, the modular pump skid systems may be rated up to 15,000 psi, but is not limited to 15,000 psi (in some cases the pressure rating may go up to 20,000 psi or more). One skilled in the art will appreciate how various equipment of within the modular pump skid system may have different pressure ratings. For example, each of the pumps may have a pressure rating of 15,000 psi while the wellheads and the manifold skid may have a pressure rating of 10,000 psi. In some embodiments, the pumps of the modular pump skid system may be pressure rated higher than the wellheads and the manifold skid, which may have pressures ratings from 5,000 psi up to 15000 psi, for example, and can change from job to job.
According to embodiments of the present disclosure, fluid conduits of the modular pump skid system may have an inner diameter ranging from, for example, 4 inches to 8 inches. One skilled in the art will appreciate how the fluid conduits is not limited to the range of 4 inches to 8 inches and may be any desired inner diameter based on the job requirements. As such, the fluid conduits may be as small as ¾ inch (i.e., a 1 inch flow line) or as large as 30 inches (API 6A has regulations up to a 30 inch ID, 3000 PSI capacity). In such a case, the ends of the fluid conduits may have an upset section to transition from a larger inner diameter at the ends to a smaller inner diameter.
In one or more embodiments, the modular pump skid systems may be deployed in at least two ways. In a first way, modular pump skid system may be loaded onto a truck and unloaded on site via a crane, for instance. Once unloaded, the modular pump skid systems can be placed in proximity to one another and secured together, such as by bolts and/or hydraulics, to form a unitary pump structure. The end portions (inlet(s) and outlet(s)) of fluid conduits of the modular pump skid system may be connected together by any known mechanisms, including flanges, clamps, grayloc hubs, KL4 connectors, etc. In some embodiments, modular pump skid systems may be mounted and deployed on flatbeds. The fluid conduit connections between multiple modular pump skid systems on a truck may be made up before the trucks are driven to the site. In a non-limiting example, the modular pump skid system may be modularized and deployed on connectable skids to reduce the number of connections to other equipment. Additionally, a size of the modular pump skid system (including the size of modular skid footprints, modular skid heights, equipment configurations arranged on the modular skids, etc.) may be selected based, for instance, on the size limitations of common transportation means, Department of Transportation (DOT) requirements (e.g., to meet weight and size limits of loads being transported on roads by trailers or trucks), the type of function each modular skid is to perform, and/or to provide reduced cost and reduced time to manufacture. Overall, a modular pump skid system according to embodiments of the present disclosure may minimize product engineering, risk associated with non-uniform connections, reduction of assembly time, hardware cost reduction, and weight and envelope reduction.
While the present disclosure has been described with respect to a limited number of embodiments, those skilled in the art, having benefit of this disclosure, will appreciate that other embodiments may be devised which do not depart from the scope of the disclosure as described herein. Accordingly, the scope of the disclosure should be limited only by the attached claims.
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Number | Date | Country |
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WO-2020096593 | May 2020 | WO |
WO-2021016312 | Jan 2021 | WO |
Number | Date | Country | |
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20210156241 A1 | May 2021 | US |
Number | Date | Country | |
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62941446 | Nov 2019 | US |