SPE-184814-MS

Long Term Conductivity vs. Point Specific Conductivity

I. Renkes, D. Anschutz, K. Sutter, and A. Rickards, PropTester

Copyright 2017, Society of Petroleum Engineers

This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE Hydraulic Fracturing Technology Conference and Exhibition held in The Woodlands, Texas, USA, 24-26 January
2017.

This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE program committee following review of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents
of the paper have not been reviewed by the Society of Petroleum Engineers and are subject to correction by the author(s). The material does not necessarily reflect
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Abstract
Long term conductivity of proppants, currently defined by API RP 19D, has been used since the early 1970's
as the standard for evaluating the conductivity and permeability of proppants for use in hydraulic fracturing.
Proppants are typically tested across their useful range in 2,000-psi (137.89-bar) increments (i.e. 2-4-6-8K-
psi) and held 50 hours at each stress level, ramp rates between each stress and the test temperatures are also
defined by API RP 19D. Frac sand is tested at 150F (65.5C) and ceramic proppants at 250F (121.11C).
Proppant suppliers use this, among other testing parameters, to develop data to market their products to the
industry. As with any standard, the test has its limitations. The test is expensive, time consuming and in
many cases does not match the application.
Point specific 50 hour (PS50) conductivity tests follow the procedures outlined in API RP 19D but use
a point specific stress and point specific temperature, modeling a specific application. Although not yet
sanctioned by the API, the test can generate meaningful data in less time, for a specific purpose and save
money. Point specific testing has maximized Research & Development budgets and increased the time to
market for new products. Operators have benefited by tailoring proppants for their specific well conditions.
In this work we plan to compare point specific test data to API RP 19D data over a range of stress and
time as the industry pushes the envelope on the applicable stress for proppants. Aven, Tang and Weaver
brought out that "it is normal to observe a continuous decline in conductivity, although less than 5% on a
daily basis, if the measurement is carried longer than two days. It is rare that the system actually achieves
equilibrium conductivity during that time, but the rate of change of conductivity does slow down1."
Could the point specific test be extended to achieve equilibrium and still be comparable to existing data
from the standardized test? Multiple tests were conducted to compare these two methods of conductivity
tests at normal duration, a point specific 50 hour (PS50) conductivity test and the API RP 19D conductivity
test which the test spends 50 hours at each 2,000 psi (137.89-bar) increment. Results presented in this paper
will help answer these questions and aid engineers make more informed decisions faster and with a lower
economic cost.

Introduction
With the advancement of technology, previously undiscovered and unreachable reservoirs are now within
reach. At the same time technology has allowed the materials being used and placed in wells to advance.
2 SPE-184814-MS

The standards to test these materials, specifically proppant, on the other had has not changed at the same rate
and has left the industry and companies who use them with a standard that is time consuming and costly.
Long term conductivity tests are not only a significant economic commitment to have performed but
can take several weeks to complete. Improvements have been made in equipment such as harder stainless
conductivity cells to test at temperatures and stresses beyond the API standard recommendation. Equipment
such as a custom built hydraulic press capable of reaching and controlling pressure beyond what was
considered standard has now become standard. However, for time consideration in this paper we will
examine the results of stresses up to 12,000-psi. Higher temperature conductivity cells require additional
engineering and customization. Ohio sandstone has to be purchased, cut, and shaped using hydraulic surface
grinders and milling machines and becomes another potential source of error to any conductivity test when
used beyond 12,000-psi.
Each stress in a multi-stack conductivity test is held for 50 hours. Typical proppants in use today are tested
up to and past 12,000-psi and these tests can last up to 300 hours or 13 days. Does the added time at lower
stress levels affect the data at the higher stress levels? The equipment and personnel that are committed
to a single test for the duration of the test are also significant. Stress levels above 8,000-psi (551.57-bar)
increase the potential damage from fines generated by the Ohio sandstone. Downhole formation core is
more representative but expensive to obtain and also see fines damage, spalling and embedment. Is there
a test that can be developed to lessen the economic, time, and man hours commitment that is currently
required for the standard long-term conductivity test? How does the developed PS50 test compare to the
standard API long-term conductivity test?
PS50 is designed to target specific wells or fields or to accelerate the research and development time-
line and extend R&D budgets. PS50 measure conductivity, width and permeability at 2 target stress values,
1000-psi (per ISO 13503-5) for 24 hours then the target stress for 50 continuous hours which is defined as
a long-term conductivity test. Reduced press time means overall reduced cost to obtain the desired data.

Multi-stress versus Single Stress

The evolution of Long Term Conductivity began about 1972 when Mr. Claude Cooke3 found that heavy
brines, high temperatures and turbulence caused an increase in resistance to flow. Mr. B.W. McDaniel's4
demonstrated in 1986 the difference in conductivity values when tested using API RP 61 procedure from
conductivity measured with temperature and stress and found that the proppant pack reaches relatively
steady state flow in 24 hours. The International Standards Organization technical committee 67 made 50
hours flow at one stress to be long term. An ISO long term conductivity test can last 350 hours or more.
Again, does the added time at lower stress levels affect the data at the higher stress levels?
A single stress conductivity test targets a specific stress and can generate data much faster that multi-
stress tests. This can be used to test and maintain proppant quality when completing multi-stage fracturing
in large fields as the test aids in proppant selection by quickly evaluating multiple proppants at formation
pressures and temperatures. SPE paper 168641 C. Mark Pearson et al.2 demonstrated how effective single
stress conductivity tests can be in maintaining high well production by maintaining the quality of the
proppants used in the stimulations. Samples are received and data generated and published within a one-
week period in the place of 3 weeks with a multi-stress conductivity test. Among the points Mr. Pearson
noted is that proppant sizing can be maintained in high demand periods while proppant quality may suffer
and the proppants that "Proppant pumped with severely reduced conductivity resulted in a measureable
decrease in well productivity"2.
Again, does the added time at lower stress levels affect the data at the higher stress levels? When the
International Standards Organization addressed proppant testing ISO 13503-2 they changed the application
of stress from zero to the target stress in one minute to applying stress at 2000-psi/minute. Results were
SPE-184814-MS 3

similar and demonstrated it was the total stress not how fast it was applied. R.D. Barree8 in SPE 84306-
MS determined that the packing arrangement of the proppant when placed in the conductivity cell was
the predominant factor in measuring the permeability. Variance as higher than 25% is common due to the
loading procedures whether using a pluviator or a technician. Data generated for this paper utilized a single
conductivity press, a single set of test cells and the same technician throughout to minimize any errors.

Benefits/cost savings of 50 hour test on Research and Development

The standard API RP 19D states "Stresses applied to the proppant pack after the initial stress shall be held
for 50 hrs. 2 hrs. any time held less than 48 hrs. at stress shall not be considered long-term conductivity.
From this we can interpret that the PS50 test is considered a long-term conductivity test because it is held at
stress for 50 hours. The only difference between the PS50 test and the standard 19D test is that the standard
test starts its stress at 2,000 psi and increases another 2000 psi every 50 hours. So to reach a stress of 14,000
psi the test will need to be run for approximately 350 hours at stress which does not include the initial stress
at 1,000 psi which adds another 12-24 hours to the entire time the sample is on the conductivity press.
Approximately 370 hours or 15 days to get results back for one test. The total time could vary depending
on the type of product being developed. A high strength synthetic proppant could be tested upwards of
20000 psi or a resin coated product could be tested up to 10K depending on the desired market it is being
developed for. For research and development this lag time to receive results on a trial basis greatly extend
the timeline needed to develop a product and bring it to market. The PS50 tests reduces that time from 15
days to 3 days. One day for the initial 1000 psi reading and then the test is increased at the API standard
rate of 100 psi/min until the desired stress is reached and then that stress is held for 50 hours. Having a
set 3 day turnaround also helps budget for time if a company is developing different products that have
different stress applications.
From the economic side the PS50 is a much quicker test but it is also not as expensive as the standard
API 19D test. Since the test spends significantly less time on the press it is also less expensive than the API
test. The amount of cost savings can vary anywhere from 35% up to 57% depending on the stress. This
allows for R&D budgets to stretch much further than before.
Companies now have the option to perform a test that accelerates their R&D timeline and reduces
the overall R&D testing costs. This test allows companies to make quick informed decisions on product
development with a minimal cost. Most companies will still need to run a full API test for product brochures
but they will be able to take the product to market much quicker and with less invested with the PS50 test.
Multiple proppant companies to date have used the PS50 to accelerate their R&D projects and to extend
the impact of their budgets. These companies were able to start building a plant before a final product was
developed because they were able to use the PS50 to their advantage and build a product and plant at the
same time. Both R&D processes still took over a year to complete the project with the help of the PS50. With
that being said if the API standard test were implemented then both R&D timelines would have extended
out past well beyond 4 years which in both cases is well past the commissioning of the production plants.
The same type of quick qualification and economic benefit can be realized by operators looking to source
products for a specific application. The PS50 was used in SPE paper 168641 C. Mark Pearson et al.2 to test
a variety of different sources of proppant and was able to make an informed economic decision based on
the results. Also from the manufacturing side where a quick test can be run to spot check products.
Another example of the benefits of time savings is this very paper. To produce the standard API test data
for this study took 6 months to generate. That gave us 3 tests to average on each sand product and only 1 test
for the lightweight ceramic. To run the additional 2 tests for the lightweight ceramic would have taken an
additional month which was past the submission deadline for this paper so we were left with an incomplete
data set because of the constraints that the standard test causes.
4 SPE-184814-MS

Comparing a 50 hours stress at pressure vs cumulative 50 hour stress at

pressure
Both the standard long term API RP19D test and the PS50 decrease in conductivity throughout the duration
of the test. For the purpose of this paper we compared the conductivity value in mD-ft. The tests were
performed on 20/40 white sand, 30/50 white sand, 40/70 white sand and 20/40 lightweight ceramic to
determine the percent change between the standard long term test and the PS50 test.
The 20/40 mesh portion of the test showed the PS50 and standard API test were very similar at 2K which
is to be expected as the 2K PS50 and API standard test are identical at that stress. The full test compared
to the PS50 is shown in Table 1 and Figure. The percent change from the beginning of the test and at the
end of the test remained consistent with only the exception of the 10K values. The 10K value was given a
Z score of -1.8 and was not thrown out as an outlier.

Table 1

20/40 White Sand 2 lb/ft2 @ 150F

Stress (psi) 2,000 4,000 6,000 8,000 10,000 12,000

Long Term 4562 3219 1545 705 245 124

PS-50 4570 3303 1384 643 193 126

Percent Difference 1 3 4 1 26 0

Figure 1
SPE-184814-MS 5

The long-term conductivity test as shown in Table 2 and Figure 2 tested 30/50 white sand. The percent
difference started out initially low as expected but at 12,000-psi (827.36-bar) significant deviation was
noticeable. The original PS50 value for 12,000-psi (827.36-bar) was 33 mD-ft however after a statistical
analysis of that point it was found to have a Z score that was classified as an outlier. Therefore, the test
was repeated and the results of the repeated test were accepted which was 83 mD-ft. The results in Figure
2 and Table 2 reflect the repeated test.

Table 2

30/50 White Sand 2 lb/ft2 @ 150F

Stress (psi) 2,000 4,000 6,000 8,000 10,000 12,000

Long Term 2783 1675 1140 418 178 106

PS-50 2740 1761 931 431 185 83

Percent Difference 2 5 18 3 4 22

Figure 2

For the 40/70 mesh tests, the PS50 conductivity value compared to the standard API test remained no
greater than 12% difference throughout the test. See Figure 3 and Table 3.
6 SPE-184814-MS

Figure 3

Table 3

40/70 White Sand 2 lb/ft2 @ 150F

Stress (psi) 2,000 4,000 6,000 8,000 10,000 12,000

Long Term 1232 974 649 337 178 95

PS-50 1268 910 618 354 156 84

Percent Difference 0 7 5 5 12 12

Lightweight ceramic was also tested for this paper to determine if the type of proppant could be affected
by the PS50 test when comparing to the standard API test method. Figure 4 and Table 4 show that the
PS50 test was never more than 15 % different from the standard API test which falls within our internal
acceptable variation.
SPE-184814-MS 7

Figure 4

Table 4

20/40 Lightweight Ceramic 2 lb/ft2 @ 250F

Stress (psi) 2,000 4,000 6,000 8,000 10,000 12,000

Long Term 8787 8223 6300 3453 1788 1005

PS-50 8741 7145 5385 3328 1747 1104

Percent Difference 1 13 15 4 2 10

How different proppants and mesh size influence test

This paper analyzed different proppant types and mesh sizes to determine if the PS50 test had a different
impact compared to the standard API test. The first assumption during the analysis of the data is that the
standard API test is the true value of the conductivity at these points. With this assumption we can then
compare the PS50 results to the standard API test. To compare the results and then to compare the results
at different stresses the results must be normalized for comparison. To achieve this we take the PS50 test
result divided by the API test. For a result that shows good comparison between the PS50 and standard API
we would expect to see a result of 1.0. Table 5 below shows the results of this normalization.
8 SPE-184814-MS

Table 5

Closure Stress 2,000 4,000 6,000 8,000 10,000 12,000 Average

(psi)

20/40 Sand 1.00 1.03 0.90 0.91 0.79 1.02 0.940

30/50 Sand 0.98 1.05 0.82 1.03 1.04 0.78 0.951

40/70 Sand 1.03 0.93 0.95 1.05 0.88 0.88 0.954

20/40 LWC 0.99 0.87 0.85 0.96 0.98 1.10 0.960

The table shows that on average the PS50 test is about 5-6% lower than the standard API testing
procedure. Now this is a small sample size so caution needs to be taken when drawing a conclusion from
this limited data set. 3 API standard tests were run and an average was taken from them. One standard API
test was thrown out of the 30/50 due to core complications which led to inability to get stable readings. The
20/40 LWC API test is not an average as time constraints only allowed for one test but the results were in
line with the other sand tests. Also due to time constraints only one set of PS50 tests were run so the data
shown in the graphs is of one data point.
The Z score is a common method used to determine if a value within a data set is an outlier. The Z score is
the difference between the value and the mean divided by the standard deviation. For this paper we decided
to reject data points that had a Z score of less than -3.0 or greater than +3.0. All data points were given a
Z score and can be seen in Table 6.

Table 6

Z Score 2,000 4,000 6,000 8,000 10,000 12,000

20/40 Sand 0.6 0.8 -0.6 -0.4 -1.8 0.7

30/50 Sand 0.4 1.1 -1.5 0.9 1.0 -1.9

40/70 Sand 0.9 -0.2 0.0 1.1 -0.8 -0.8

20/40 LWC 0.5 -0.9 -1.1 0.1 0.3 1.7

The mean for the complete data set is 0.94 and the standard deviation is 0.16. The only point that that
failed our criteria and was classified as an outlier was the 30/50 sand 12K reading. The Z score of this
data point is 3.86. Because it is classified as an outlier the test was repeated. The result of the repeated test
resulted in a conductivity of 83 mD-ft which had a Z score of 1.9. This Z score resulted in the acceptance
of the test and the new Mean for the updated data is 0.95 with a standard deviation of 0.09.

Conclusions
1. While ISO long term conductivity and PS50 conductivity results fall both above and below each other,
the overall results indicate that the PS50 test is about 5% lower than the standard API test method.
This is based on a limited number of samples so caution should be used when taking these results
into consideration.
2. Comparing long term conductivity to point specific conductivity the percent change from the
beginning of the test and at the end of the test remained similar from beginning to end and well within
the statistical mean.
3. For various proppants and mesh sizes normalization of results indicate that data falls within predicted
results for the various particle distributions in both the API and PS50 conductivity tests.
SPE-184814-MS 9

4. PS50 tests produce valuable and comparable data used in material selection and quality control at
a significant cost savings. The amount of cost savings can vary anywhere from 35% up to 57%
depending on the stress. This allows for R&D budgets to stretch much further than before.
5. PS50 tests are a valuable tool for operators, service companies and proppant manufactures that allow
them to quickly determine the expected performance characteristics of proppants

References
1. Nevil Kunnath Aven (Halliburton) | Tingji Tang (Halliburton) | Jim D Weaver (Halliburton)
SPE-164082-MS, Society of Petroleum Engineers SPE International Symposium on Oilfield
Chemistry, 8-10 April, the Woodlands, Texas, USA.
2. Pearson, C.Mark,(Liberty Resources LLC), Griffin, Larry (Liberty Resources LLC), Chikaloff,
Juliana(Liberty Resources LLC, SPE 168641-MS, MS, Society of Petroleum Engineers SPE
International Symposium on Oilfield Chemistry, Woodlands, Texas, USA Measuring Field
Supplied Proppant Conductivity : Issues Discovered in an Operator.
3. C. E. Cooke, Jr., SPE-AIME,( Esso Production Research Co.),SPE 4117-PA, SPEAIME 47th
Annual Fall Meeting, held in San Antonio. Tex., Oct. 811, 1972, "Conductivity of Fracture
Proppants in Multiple Layers"
4. B.W. McDaniel, Halliburton Services SPE Member, Copyright 1986, SPE 15067-MS, Society
of Petroleum Engineers, presented at the 56th California Regional Meeting of the Society of
Petroleum Engineers held in Oakland, CA, April 2-4, 1986. "Conductivity Testing of Proppants at
High Temperature and Stress"
5. International Standards Organization, ISO 13503-5 "Procedures for Measuring the Long Term
Conductivity of Proppants" ISO 13503-5:2006(E)
6. American Petroleum Institute, API RP 61 "Recommended Practices for Evaluating Short Term
Proppant Pack Conductivity", First Edition, October 1, 1989.
7. API RP 19D "Recommended Practice for Measuring the Long-term Conductivity of Proppants",
First Edition (ISO 13503-5:2006, Identical) (Includes July 2008 Errata)
8. R.D.Barree, Barree and Associates, S.A.Cox,SPE 84306, SPE Annual Technical Conference and
Exhibition, Denver, Co. 5-8 October, 2003, "Realistic Assessment of Proppant Pack Conductivity
for Material Selection"
9. G.Penny, Stimlab, SPE 16900, SPE 62nd Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition, Dallas
Texas Sept. 27-30, 1987, "An Evaluation of the Effects of Enviromental Conditions and
Fracturing Fluids Upon the Long Term Conductivity of Proppants"
10. R.R. McDaniels, BJ Hughes, J.R. Willingham, BJ Hughes, SPE 53rd Annual Technical
Conference and Exhibition, Houston, Texas, Oct.1-3, 1978. "The Effect of Various Proppants and
Proppant Mixtures on Fracture Permeability"