Upsized fracks, upsized completions, enhanced completions—take your pick. Clearly, the variation in terminology reflects the Shakespearean observation that a rose by any other name smells just as sweet. While the term “enhanced completions” has wormed its way into the ever-evolving oil and gas industry lexicon, it remains an amorphous concept. What, specifically, is involved, and what is the approximate size of the enhanced completions market?

A look at four major markets, including the Eagle Ford Shale, the Permian Basin, the Midcontinent and the Bakken Shale, finds enhanced completions representing less than half of horizontal wells, though the number is rising steadily as operators investigate ways to pursue completion effectiveness, or greater recovery of original hydrocarbon in place. Those are the results of a Hart Energy market intelligence survey of well-stimulation providers, oil and gas operators and a completions consultant.

“We have gone from three clients using our enhanced completion methods in the Permian six months ago to at least 12 clients using this method now,” one mid-tier well stimulation services provider told Hart Energy’s market intelligence surveyors.

Generally, survey respondents defined enhanced completions as a basket of techniques incorporating longer laterals, shorter spacing between stages and more sand per stage.

“On laterals up to 10,000 feet, we continue to use 200-foot spacing and just keep increasing sand volume per stage,” a mid-tier well stimulation service provider said. “Both initial production [IP] and longer-term production show improved daily volume.”

Among survey respondents, stage counts for enhanced completions range from 30 to 55 with spacing averaging 238 feet between stages. Operators are also requiring multiple perforation cluster sets between stages.

In the Bakken, enhanced completions are more expensive than standard completions because of the greater use of crosslink gel and ceramic proppant.

“Our typical 10- to 12-stage slickwater fracks can be completed for $400,000 to $500,000, but the most recent of these upsized jobs was done for $2.1 million,” a Bakken Shale well stimulation service provider told Hart Energy telephone surveyors. “The operators who do them believe the increased production will easily make it worthwhile.”

The goal for enhanced completions is the same, regardless of market, and that is to increase production volume, usually identified as higher IP rates early in the well’s history.

An Oklahoma oil and gas operator said enhanced completions have a quick payback.

“I use the enhanced completion methods now because the extra money spent up front pays back easily by increased production.”

There is a robust debate among completion consultants over whether the process generates the same production volumes more quickly and enhances net present value (NPV), or whether the process actually increases EUR. The argument is you can boost either NPV or EUR, and maybe boost both just a little, but completion strategies generally will favor either a large NPV boost or a large EUR boost, but cannot produce both.

The most frequently mentioned proppant in enhanced completions is straight natural sand, usually in grades 20/40 and 40/70. However, there is growing use of 100-mesh sand, primarily in the Eagle Ford and Marcellus. In a few cases operators have opted for 100-mesh sand only in horizontal laterals.

“We use high sand volume methods to increase production for several clients, but we still have one large client doing 12 million pounds of all 100-mesh sand,” an Eagle Ford service provider told Hart Energy Market Intelligence surveyors.

In general, nearly 90% of survey respondents cited the use of plug and perf completion methods with multiple perforation clusters per stage as the predominant practice for enhanced completions. A small percentage of respondents noted the use of specialized sliding sleeves packed more closely together to generate more perforations between stages.

Typically, service providers in the Hart Energy survey said the process ranged from 20% to 50% of the horizontal completions they were performing in the third quarter 2014. However, some service providers in select markets noted enhanced completions represented more than 75% of their work volume, which is in contrast to a small number that reported less than 20% of horizontal wells using the methodology. Enhanced completion market penetration among all survey respondents averaged 41% of horizontal completions across the four central U.S. markets.

Contact the author, Richard Mason, at rmason@hartenergy.com.