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FRAC without a K

FRAC without a K is the third edition of the initial book titled “Stimulation Treatment Handbook”. The first book came out in 1985 and was dedicated primarily to quality control, with a lot of discussion relating to larcenous situations and the lack of real-time monitoring on fracturing treatments.

The second book, titled “Stimulation Engineering Handbook” introduced in 1994, also contains a great deal of quality control, but also has much more updating of the QC process and implementation of fracturing treatments including post frac recommendations.

John W. Ely includes the chapters from the 1994 book as leadoff into the actual 2022 book chapters. He believes that this will be something unique in that he will be, many times critical of what he said before, as well as giving new technology, techniques, equipment etc., comparing what was done in 1994 to the present day. We will delve into what is going on for all phases of fracturing including fracture design, job optimization and re-fracturing

One of the center points of John’s belief is that we must learn from the past and be capable of altering our perception of what is happening to be able to do the very best job possible.

One of the people who John admired most in this industry, Dr. Steve Holditch, had a saying which he always restated most of the time in meetings. Basically, he stated, “I reserve the right to get smarter”. Some of the saddest times of John’s career was when well-intentioned engineers and or researchers re-invented past failures.

We will have a new chapter titled “Reinvention of past failures and massive overuse of intuitive reasoning”. This chapter may irritate some, but further illustrates the saying “If we don’t study the past, we are doomed to repeat it”

John also state at the onset of the book that his biggest pet peeves are when journalists or others spell frac with a K. They will be confined to the 7th level of Dante’s description of the opposite of paradise.