Natural gas used to power fracking rigs

Fuel Fix:

Apache Corp.’s announcement earlier this month that it willpower an entire hydraulic fracturing job with engines running on natural gas was only the most visible sign of a change sweeping the industry.

Lyle Jensen, CEO of American Power Group, said his company saw orders grow tenfold between 2011 and 2012 to convert hydraulic fracturing drilling rigs from diesel to a system allowing them to use natural gas.

Speaking this week at the World LNG Fuels Conference, Jensen said some companies like the security of knowing they can still use both fuels. But he said the technology allows them to reap the benefits of natural gas, including lower emissions and cost savings.

Jensen’s company supplies dual fuel technology to convert diesel engines, including heavy-duty trucks and oil field equipment, to run on natural gas.

Originally, he said, he expected the software to be a temporary solution until companies switched to full natural gas operations.

Not anymore.

“We now believe full-bore natural gas and dual fuel will co-exist,” he said.

The conference and a related expo, which concluded Wednesday, drew about 800 people, a sign of the growing interest in finding new ways to use the bounty of natural gas unleashed by horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing in the United States.

Many of the sessions dealt with using liquefied natural gas for heavy duty trucks or building the LNG infrastructure. But Jensen, along with Russell Goss, a marketing project manager with Caterpillar, talked about the implications for the oil field.

Caterpillar worked with Halliburton and Schlumberger on the Apache project, which Apache estimated would cut fuel costs by about 40 percent.
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The payback on the conversion cost is about one year.  That seems like an excellent return on investment.  I like the idea of using natural gas for the rigs that are producing he shale bounty.  These rigs are just some of the applications for the technology.  With the software allowing duel use of fuel, that would also seem ideal for the over the road rigs that might worry about the infrastructure of natural gas fueling stations.