The owner and operator of a frack sand plant at Oakwood, Oklahoma has announced the start of commercial operations of a resin coating facility in Monahans, Texas.
Preferred Proppants, LLC, the Pennsylvania-based firm with frack-sand mining operations in Oklahoma, Texas and other states is the first company to open an in-basin resin coating facility serving the Permian Basin. The firm indicated the location will allow customers to realize new savings for resin coated sand by reducing cost and associated logistics in the region.
“At Preferred, we are firmly committed to driving down the costs associated with proppant flowback for our customers,” said Marc McQuesten, Senior Vice President of Sales and Technology, Preferred Proppants. “The opening of our Monahans, Texas resin plant further solidifies Preferred’s leading position in the market, as we are able to offer our polyurethane resin coated proppants more efficiently and cost-effectively than ever before.”
Proppant flowback is the flow of poorly consolidated proppant from hydraulic fractures along with produced fluids. Proppant flowback continues to be a major operational challenge for exploration and production companies in the Permian basin, causing millions of dollars of lost revenue each year.
Proppant flowback reduces the fracture volume causing a detrimental effect on a well’s production. Presence of proppant in produced fluid can cause damage to the surface equipment requiring additional separation equipment to handle flowback which elevates the operating cost of a well. Proppant flowback is considered one of the major factors directly correlated with reduction of effective lifespan of downhole ESP pumps.
The new resin coating facility is situated between the Midland and Delaware Basins and is located off Interstate 20. This announcement comes on the heels of recent openings of Preferred’s other in-basin sand mines in South Texas, West Texas and Oklahoma.