American Oil and Gas Reporter - August 2018 - 64

SpecialReport: Hydraulic Fracturing Technology
Oil and gas companies are undergoing a digital transformation
driven by an explosion of collected data, yet many organizations
and legacy processes simply cannot keep up with or leverage
all the data being generated in the field. The nature of a
completion operation is inherently erratic. Daily proppant
demand at a well site will increase or decrease regularly from
what was expected and planned for at the job's onset. Allocating
and assigning resources to supply a well site that is so inherently
inconsistent takes extraordinary agility, flexibility and attention
to detail.
When managing inputs from multiple railroads and multiple
transload facilities, combined with erratic wellsite daily demand,
the supply chain team must be equipped with the tools to make
necessary adjustments on the fly. A single hour of downtime
waiting on sand can cost an operator upwards of $20,000. An
effective last-mile delivery operation is more critical than ever
to a fracture treatment's success and profitability. Accordingly,
the companies responsible for transporting, storing and delivering
proppant must understand the value of organized data and
provide operators with the resources and analytics they need to
identify and solve the unique problems inherent in last-mile operations.
Automated Data Collection
Raw data is like crude oil. It is valuable, but if left unrefined
and unprocessed, it cannot be used effectively. Asking the right
questions about last-mile operations and pinpointing where to
focus time and attention are imperative to capturing and analyzing
all aspects of the process. To that end, the most advanced
container proppant delivery solutions available today use a
combination of QR code optical labeling, wellsite "geofencing"
and radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology to capture
and automate data collection not only at the transload facility or
storage silo, but all the way to the onsite data van.

Pertinent data are available through a live customizable
dashboard with key performance indicators that paint a picture
of what is happening at each step in the proppant delivery
process, from the frac sand mine to the sand king at the well. In
addition, dispatchers are provided a live map of the drivers' respective locations, costs and available hours to assist with maximizing each driver's delivery efficiency.
State-of-the-art software tools trend site sand demand, with
transload efficiency as well as turn time variances to equip the
operator with the knowledge needed to increase total productivity.
These data help clients understand and withstand the ebbs and
flows of well site demand unpredictability.
Collecting and analyzing last-mile data is a combination of
utilizing what we see in the field day to day and what the data
are telling us. Information tells a story, but the lessons from that
story are most useful when they can be paired with detailed
firsthand knowledge of the unique operational challenges posed
by last-mile sand delivery.
How can oil and gas companies be assured that "smart" containerized sand delivery is effective, flexible and more costeffective than traditional pneumatic or silo operations? The
answer is in the data. Containers provide flexibility and agility,
comparable to a mobile military strike force. Similar to the
shipping container, which revolutionized global trade, proppant
containers deliver the opportunity for forward staging and
system diversion strategies, which can lead to the reduction and
elimination of demurrage.
Exceptional Efficiency
How do we know that these benefits hold true? Once again,
the answer lies within the data, and more importantly, within
the structured organization of the large dataset collected by
the big data software. Consider the example of an operator
that had been using pneumatic delivery and an associated

FIGURE 1
Pneumatic versus Containerized Delivery Systems
1,500 Load Pneumatic Average
Daily Unique Drivers

1,500 Load Container System Average

Daily Unique Drivers

Total Deliveries/Day

Average Deliveries/Driver

2.0

Average Deliveries/Driver

2.7

Average Load Volume
Average Sand Delivered/Driver

41,992
82,070

Average Load Volume
Average Sand Delivered/Driver

Average Mileage

STD of Deliveries/Day

Avg. Time at Destination