American Oil and Gas Reporter - February 2022 - 72

Rate vs. Cumulative Oil Plot
1,000
Historical
Pre-Treatment Forecast
Post-Treatment Actual
Post-Treatment Forecast
100
22% oil incremental EUR
30% gas incremental EUR
10
75,000 85,000 95,000 105,000 115,000 125,000 135,000 145,000 155,000 165,000 175,000
Cumulative Oil (bbl)
By using diverters to distribute chemistries throughout the lateral, Kairos Energy Services
reports it can boost mature unconventional wells' production and remediate damage, including
water block from frac hits. In the Eagle Ford, the company's process has yielded
substantial increases in production and reserves.
trade-off to get 20% more production
from a well, " he assesses.
Broad Appeal
According to Lantz, many wells can
benefit from Kairos Energy Services'
treatments. " For mature unconventional
wells, we focus on ones performing
below expectations, " he says. " We analyze
those wells to look for signs of specific
problems, such as changes in the rate
transient analysis indicating damage,
unusually high water cuts or rapid
changes in the gas-to-oil ratio, all of
which can indicate water block or other
addressable damage. "
The company often treats newer wells
to remediate frac hits, Lantz reports. Alternately,
it can help prevent a hit by
filling a well with fluid to keep it from
acting as a pressure sink. " Our diverters
can distribute fluid effectively across the
whole lateral and build more pressure
for each barrel of water injected, " Lantz
says. " We often see 50% more pressure
than comparable wells that have been
prefilled without diverters. "
Lantz adds that the frac hit protection
fluids contain production-enhancing
chemistries. Noting that the company's
first deployment took place in November
2020, he says Kairos has worked in the
Eagle Ford, Denver-Julesburg, Bakken
and Powder River plays. " We are excited
72 THE AMERICAN OIL & GAS REPORTER
about what we have been able to achieve, "
he comments. " This year, we will be
scaling up to a commercial level with
our first client in the Eagle Ford and potentially
conducting trials in the Permian
and SCOOP/STACK. "
Automation's Benefits
Automating chemical injection pumps
can yield significant returns, says Chad
Hammond, president of DCiii Control.
" When we use our control system to automatically
adjust the injection rate as
fluid volumes change, we typically see
a 10%-30% optimization in chemical
volumes, " he reports. " This often means
reducing chemical consumption, but
sometimes we end up increasing it to
avoid underdosing, which can lead to
expensive issues. "
Hammond says optimizing treatment
volumes is especially important today,
when supply chain disruptions have made
it difficult and increasingly expensive to
source many chemicals.
" Our automation system can pay for
itself rapidly, " he suggests. " For particularly
troubled injection points or ones
where volumes fluctuate frequently, payback
can be as fast as a few days or a
week. For new wells, it usually takes a
month or two. For wells between six
months and five years old, or other injection
points, the equipment often pays for
itself in two-six months. "
DCiii's equipment replicates the steps
chemical technicians or pumpers normally
take if they manage sites manually. " When
technicians get to a site, they walk up to
the chemical tank, isolate a sight glass
off to the side and watch the pump run to
figure out how quickly it's injecting. Then
they adjust the pump to match the prescribed
injection rate, which is often written
on a clipboard, " Hammond describes.
" With our system, we can repeat the
same steps every five-15 minutes, " he
says. " This changes technicians' job from
driving around to check every injection
point for which they're responsible, which
can be anywhere from 50 to 400, to managing
by exception. They get a report in
the morning that identifies injection points
with abnormal behavior, and only need
to drive to those. In addition to saving
time and money, this reduces driving-related
safety risks and emissions. "
Enabling Automation
Building equipment to automate chemical
injection is quite a challenge, Hammond
reflects. " When my father and I
first began to look at automating chemical
injection in 2015, we planned to be a
distributor, but we could not find any
By pairing a robust sight glass with a
power-efficient controller, DCiii Control
says it can automate almost any chemical
injection pump. The company's system
maintains the desired dosage while giving
users real-time visibility into chemical
consumption and pump behavior.
Rate (bopd)

American Oil and Gas Reporter - February 2022

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