Client Oil & Gas Exploration Company
Location Oklahoma, USA
Sectors Oil and gas
The challenge
Cooling boiling water to transfer through temporary pipelines
During fracking, temporary high-density polyethylene pipelines are used to transport water from the drilling site out of the way to temporary holding sites. But the deeper the drilling points reach, the hotter water temperatures will get, resulting in problems transporting this water through the temporary pipes.
One U.S. oil and gas exploration company was drilling down to about a 10,000 ft. depth point where the water backflow produced reached nearly 600 gallons a minute. The water at these depths would reach approximately 280°F, which at that temperature was too hot for the pumps and the piping to work properly.
To keep on top of the output, the customer was filling up a new truck every 30 minutes and driving the water to a sister site 12 miles away.
This was a logistical nightmare - but unless we could more than halve the heat of the water to run it through their pipes, the customer would have to keep using this costly and cumbersome method.
Project fact file
Backflow water temperature
Water pumping per minute
Needed to move this water
The solution
Cooling towers for summer months, fin fans for the winter
For the winter months, our experts determined the problem could be solved with the careful use of fin fans to cool the water down. The real trouble was in the summer.
For the hotter months, we set up a separate water tank, which connected to our cooling towers and heat exchangers. A flow of 585 gallons per minute moved from the well and into the tank, where we brought the temperature down to just 86°F — a perfect temperature for running through the pipes.
The entire set up was powered by two of our 300 kW generators, along with the necessary cabling and distribution equipment for connection. Additionally, we had our certified technicians onsite and readily available if the customer needed additional support — a perfect setup to ensure there we no delays in drilling.
the aggreko difference
Applying our expertise to save you money, time and logistical headaches
The impact
A faster, more cost efficient system
With the water cool enough to run through the pumps and pipes, there was no more need to resort to expensive trucks to get water away from the injection site. Eliminating the need for trucking and time spent getting the water loaded and to the sister site allowed the customer to better manage time keep the project on track.
More importantly the customer had a seamless, hassle-free solution that ran up no extra expense or bottlenecks, sharply reducing their overall costs.
“Aggreko has been the only contractor who has done what they said they would do, by when they said they would do it and met our timelines for production.”
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