Shifting The Focus To Optimized Production

Producers operating in the unconventional oil and gas basins in North America have found in optimized completion designs the right recipes to make production in a post-downturn industry economic. Over the past half-decade, operators have discovered that longer laterals, higher proppant loads, tighter stage spacing and more fracture stages have led to lower breakeven costs in a $70/bbl price environment.

Now there are emerging signs indicating that the era of optimized completions might be beginning to plateau, that operators might be pumping as much proppant into the well as they can and that laterals have extended so long that it might not be economical to drill out much farther.