Core Labs Conference Call - 4/20/17

[wilmawatts]

Core Labs Conference Call - 4/20/17
Company (David Demshur CEO) sees four major trends in the industry:

1. Client interest in enhanced oil recovery from tight oil reservoirs. Core initial work indicates possible increased recoveries of 9% to 15% by utilizing gas absorption techniques, gas cycling, and other thermodynamic principles utilizing simulation programs to model. Possibly increases return on invested capital by 40% to 50%.

2. The use of finer proppants in the initial stages of the fracing process to micro prop secondary and tertiary fracture patterns deep into the fracture zone. Evaluating 200 and 400 mesh sand, followed by 70/40 late in the frac process. Significantly boosts type curves with very little extra costs, increasing return on investment.

3. Significant increase in proppant loading and the number of stages per well. At the end of 2016 the stage count had increased 34%to an average of 40 per well with average separation of 200 feet. Average proppant loading 1,700 pounds per lateral foot. Lateral length only increased 14% during th time period.

4. Increasing use of ‘big data’ to evaluate reservoirs and performance to maximize return on investment.

[dan_s]

Every operations update that I get seems to have the words "getting better well results using more sand".

At our luncheon in Dallas on April 12th, Frank Bracken (Lonestar's CEO) said that they are getting much better results by fracing first with very fine sand to get deep into the micro fractures, then finishing the frac with 70/40 mess.

[bellwj]

So who stands to gain most from increased use of 'fine sand'?