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That means there’s more opportunity for something to go wrong.” “There’s a lot going on in flowback -you have more pressure and more sand to deal with. Flowback operators specialize in managing this period, troubleshooting, and keeping everything flowing. “From there, the flow goes through a choke manifold and then we send it down piping over to our separators.”įlowback can be a very volatile period in production. “Sand is heavier, so it gets processed out and sent to frac tanks.” “When the flow comes up from the well head, it runs through the Christmas tree and then to our sand separators,” says Adam. At the center of it is the wellbore, out of which rises a wellhead, also called a “Christmas tree.” This is the piping, valves, and fittings connected to the top of a well that direct and control the flow.Īround the wellhead orbit the various vessels and equipment that separate the formation fluid into disposal, recycle, and sales routes. The well site is approximately the size of a football field. And the well doesn’t stop for weekends, sick days, or holidays. “I haven’t seen a Christmas tree in four years,” he says. Living in a trailer on site, Adam works twelve-hour shifts seven days a week, rain or shine. In this industry I can make three times or more what I could back in my hometown.”Īdam has worked in the Eagleford in South Texas, the Utica and Marcellus in Ohio, and the Haynesville in Louisiana. “I knew to make the kind of money I wanted to, I had to leave home. He’s currently a flowback operator working in the STACK in Oklahoma’s Woodford Shale.
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Originally from a small town in South Louisiana-with a distinct Cajun-tinged accent to prove it-Adam Verrett has been chasing oil and gas jobs for the last 19 years. Flowback generally consists of a mixture of sand, crude oil, natural gas, and water.Ī flowback operator’s job is to manage a well’s production during the first period of production, until the sand is relatively stable and the well is producing mostly oil and gas. When a shale well first comes on, “flowback” is the first thing that returns. The plug will be opened when the construction crew has installed the flowback equipment and the flowback operators are on site and the well will be opened to flowback production. Installing a temorary plug is the next step after fracking the formation. Proppant is a blend of sand, water, and additives designed to expand fractures in the shale. In September of 2014, this practice surpassed traditional methods and became the primary way companies produced energy.Īfter drilling a well the next step in the process requires a frac crew pumping high volumes of a mixture, proppant, into the well. The practice of horizontal drilling and fracturing shale formations for oil and gas began growing in the U.S.