Calfrac Well Services and several operators appear to be running an experiment using very high levels of Oleamide and low levels of proppant in hydraulic fracturing jobs.
About Oleamide
Oleamide is a synonym for (9Z)-Octadec-9-enamide, ACToR CAS Number 301-02-0. This dry powder is used as a slip agent for lubricants, greases and even laundry detergents. It is also used to treat sleep disorders in humans.
Why is this important?
Since FracFocus has been collecting disclosures, we have never seen Oleamide submitted, by itself, as an ingredient. The closest is Oleamide DEA (DEA = diethanolamine) that has been used in 685 frac jobs at an average concentration by mass of 0.001172%. If we use Oleamide DEA as a proxy for Oleamide, it would make Oleamide in 10 of the below fracs a 200 sigma event (after data normalization). That’s a pretty big deal!
Let’s look at the data:
The following chart demonstrates frac jobs using oleamide at an unusually high percentage. Whiting Oil and Extraction Oil & Gas are operating ten of these wells with Oleamide, (9Z)-Octadec-9-enamide, at ~50% of the sum of frac chemicals. Continental Resources is also running a single well test up in North Dakota’s Divide county. We’ve included links to both oseFrac and the state record for each of these jobs.
APILink to oseFracLink to
| API | Link to oseFrac | Link to State Site |
Frac Sum |
Producing Formation | Formation Top (ft) | Water (gal) | Carrier Fluid (%) | Proppant (%) | Oleamide (%) | Job Start Date | State/ County |
Operator |
| 05123400230000 | <click here> | <click here> | 100% | N/A | N/A | 5,743,794 | 46.45% | 3.40% | 50.0104790 | 8/31/2017 | CO/Weld | Whiting Oil |
| 05123425950000 | <click here> | <click here> | 100% | N/A | N/A | 10,877,521 | 46.57% | 3.30% | 50.0044289 | 8/8/2017 | CO/Weld | Whiting Oil |
| 05123425970000 | <click here> | <click here> | 100% | N/A | N/A | 10,844,303 | 46.51% | 3.35% | 50.0033913 | 8/8/2017 | CO/Weld | Whiting Oil |
| 05123425990000 | <click here> | <click here> | 100% | N/A | N/A | 10,854,333 | 46.52% | 3.35% | 50.0027618 | 8/21/2017 | CO/Weld | Whiting Oil |
| 05123391160000 | <click here> | <click here> | 100% | N/A | N/A | 5,612,544 | 46.39% | 3.48% | 50.0022697 | 9/5/2017 | CO/Weld | Whiting Oil |
| 05123425960000 | <click here> | <click here> | 100% | N/A | N/A | 10,621,166 | 46.50% | 3.37% | 50.0020103 | 8/21/2017 | CO/Weld | Whiting Oil |
| 05123400210000 | <click here> | <click here> | 100% | N/A | N/A | 5,647,740 | 46.41% | 3.46% | 50.0016212 | 9/5/2017 | CO/Weld | Whiting Oil |
| 05123317590000 | <click here> | <click here> | 100% | J Sand | 7370 | 142,867 | 37.43% | 12.33% | 49.9286613 | 9/13/2017 | CO/Weld | Extraction Oil & Gas |
| 05123310360000 | <click here> | <click here> | 100% | J Sand | 7528 | 127,323 | 36.12% | 13.62% | 49.9240189 | 9/14/2017 | CO/Weld | Extraction Oil & Gas |
| 33023012390000 | <click here> | <password>* | 100% | Frobisher | 7756 | 5,603,441 | 45.19% | 4.67% | 49.9822311 | 8/8/2017 | ND/Divide | Continental Resources |
*Note: The DNR requires registration to view this scout ticket.
What to note:
- All these fracs sum to 100%, and we believe they were reported accurately to FracFocus.
Note: the sum of the ingredients in a well is a good indicator that a submission to FracFocus is valid. When the percentages of ingredients (by mass, converted if necessary) in a disclosure to Fracfocus do not add to near 100%, we consider that well invalid for statistical analysis. These wells, like the majority of wells in our oseFrac product, appear properly reported. - Whiting Oil and Continental Resources are running very low proppant levels (less than 5%).
- Whiting Oil ran 7 fracs with extremely high Oleamide levels and one with very low Oleamide and 39% water.
- Calfrac Well Services provided all the Oleamide to the 11 fracs in table and 2 more Andarko fracs (05123425670000and 05123425620000), also in Weld County, but at very low levels. We suspect Calfrac pumped these 11 frac jobs.
- Most intriguing is the huge water volumes Whiting is running. For example, API 05123425950000 pumped down 10,877,521 gallons of water (46.57%) and 97,292,007.69 pounds of Oleamide (if the 50.00% Oleamide percent is accurate). This is an extremely large amount of Oleamide. In fact, it’s an extremely large amount of any solid used in a frac job. Extraction O&G seems to be doing just the opposite with very low water volumes. Neither company is reporting depths yet.
Comparing oseFrac and State records, we see:
- None of these fracs have reported production to Colorado or North Dakota yet. This data lags 2+ months.
- Extraction Oil & Gas asked Colorado to mark their completion information confidential.
- Whiting Oil shows “not completed” as producing formation and no reported depths in its state filings, to date.