Hydraulic fracturing teams may soon be able to achieve almost perfect proppant distribution across clusters in a stage, an advance that will significantly improve wells’ initial and long-term production. The key is autonomous intelligent fracturing, a novel technique that combines automated fleet operations with real-time measurements and lightning-fast modeling to fine-tune completion parameters during each stage.

Hess’ vision for AIF is ambitious. Realizing this vision will require substantial investments and close collaboration between multiple parties to develop new capabilities. For example, we will need more economic tools for evaluating fracture networks’ length and morphology and estimating how much fluid and proppant enters each cluster. To make useful recommendations based on this information, we will need to create faster models that still provide accurate predictions. And to implement those models’ recommendations, we must have reliable ways to control fracture geometry that can be deployed automatically.

In AOGR’s August issue, we detailed Hess’ approach to autonomous intelligent fracturing and explored steps it is taking to make AIF a reality. This article will explain why real-time frac optimization justifies that effort by looking at one of its biggest benefits: the potential production increase from near-perfect proppant distribution.

Click here to read the rest of this article in AOGR.