American Oil and Gas Reporter - March 2018 - 77

SpecialReport: Advancing Shale Science
Because it burns natural gas, Combs
continues, the turbine's emissions are
well below the Environmental Protection
Agency's Tier 4 Final standard, which
modern engines must meet. "Noise levels
are much lower as well," he adds. "At a
distance of one meter from the turbine,
decibels measure about 82 decibels, well
below the Occupational Safety and Health
Administration's threshold for ear plugs."
At that level, personnel on location
can talk without raising their voices,
Combs says. He describes the fleet as a
great fit for operators who need to work
in close proximity to homes, businesses
and public spaces.
"In areas where space is limited, such
as the Northeast and Rocky Mountains,
the electric fleets have another advantage:
a small footprint," Combs says. "Because
all the pumps are powered by a single
turbine, it is no longer necessary to put
an engine and transmission on each trailer.
With the extra space, we replace the
2,250- or 2,500-horsepower pump that
normally would be on each trailer with
two, 3,000-horsepower pumps."
The higher horsepower concentrations
reduce the number of trailers on location
and the spread's overall footprint by 5560 percent, Combs calculates. He adds
that each fleet only requires a crew of 11.
"For safety and efficiency, all equipment is operated from the data van,"
Combs says. "There is rarely a reason
for the crew to step outside. With the exception of the master bleed off valves,
which are manual for safety reasons, all
the valves are remotely actuated. The
van's dual-level design provides a 'crow's
nest' view of the location. That is augmented by high-resolution cameras on
top of the van, each pump, the blender
tub, the hopper, and the hydration unit,
so the crew can see everything it needs
to from the van."
In 2017, Combs reports that Evolution
had a total recordable incident rate of 0.0
with a single fleet commercialized the
entire year. He says that fleet worked in
the Permian Basin, the Eagle Ford, and
the Marcellus and Utica on demonstrations
and attracted enough interest that the
company is building five more this year.
These fleets are committed to major U.S.
onshore producers on multiyear contracts,
so Evolution is expanding more.
"In the next few years, when the fracturing industry needs to build or replace
horsepower, service providers will want
it to be electric. In fact, we see significant

evidence other service providers are looking at developing electric fleets," Combs
says. "With the right technology, it already
is possible to build turbine-powered equipment at a price-per-horsepower comparable
to a diesel fleet, and the price only will
go down over time. Given the economic,
environmental and safety benefits electric
fleets offer, that is great news."
Ramping Up Production
"Now is an exciting time for packagers
that provide equipment to pressure pumping companies," says Nathan Markert,
National Oilwell Varco's vice president
of pressure pumping equipment for the
United States.
"Since the industry pivoted from survival mode to growth in early 2017, our
order board and quote activity have gone
up substantially," he says. "During 2017,
we increased our business eight times
and doubled the size of our staff."
In the process, Markert says NOV is
expanding its rebuild capabilities. "We
have gone from two bays for rebuilding
and reactivating aging equipment to 12
bays in a facility dedicated to that task,"
he details. "That is a significant increase
in capacity, but demand is high enough
that we continue to look for ways to increase it."
As they build and rebuild equipment,
Markert says packagers have one goal in
mind: Reducing equipment's total cost

of ownership. That often means extending
maintenance intervals and the run life of
consumables such as fluid ends and discharge pumps on blenders.
"In addition, we are making improvements to reduce the number of personnel
needed on site to operate our equipment,"
he reports. "Through automation and centralized control, we are moving from the
traditional approach of having multiple
operators run individual units to having
an operator oversee a spread. This reduces
salary-related costs and safety risks while
consolidating control in the hands of a
senior, more experienced operator who
makes better decisions.
"As automation continues to advance,
we are getting better at using analytics to
reduce costs," Markert adds. "We hope
to help fleet operators track equipment
costs and adopt maintenance cycles that
are based on need rather than the number
of days or hours a pump or other piece of
equipment has spent operating."
Pumps, engines and transmissions are
getting larger, Markert observes. "As the
industry continues to pump more sand,
spreads have gone from moving as frequently as once a day to staying at one
location for weeks and operating continuously during that period," he notes. "To
minimize maintenance-related downtime
in that 24/7 environment, we are using
larger, less mobile equipment with thicker
piping and tougher materials."

National Oilwell Varco's pressure
pumping equipment division is
expanding capacity to meet growing demand for new-build and
retroﬁt ﬂeets. In 2017, the division
reports, it doubled the size of its
staff to handle an eight-fold increase in business.

MARCH 2018 77
American Oil and Gas Reporter - March 2018

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