ecorpStim advances green shale gas technologies

eCORP Stimulation Technologies (ecorpStim) has announced advances expected to further improve the cost effectiveness of ecorpStim’s non-water, non-chemical Non-Flammable Propane (NFP) stimulation technology.

Together with ecorpStim’s Pure Propane Stimulation (PPS) stimulation technology, the NFP technology eliminates the large quantities of water and chemical additive typically used in fracking.

With NFP, efforts are proceeding to dramatically reduce the cost of ecorpStim's non-flammable stimulation fluid, Heptafluoropropane (HFP).

HFP is a non-flammable, non-toxic, non-ozone depleting gas commonly used in medicinal inhalers and fire extinguishers. For these uses, HFP sterility and purity are of utmost importance.

ecorpStim and scientists at the Energy Safety Research Institute (ESRI) at Swansea University and the Department of Chemistry Rice University have a research program to enable HFP to be a cost effective stimulation fluid in common practice. The components being investigated include:

• Process engineering
• Commercial effects of HFP purity
• Advanced field separation and recycling

Comments

ecorpStim board member, D. Ronald Harrell, P.E., observed: "Time and time again we observe the effectiveness of multidisciplinary teams, such as the ecorpStim research consortium, where industrial, institutional and academic contributors come together to create major advancements such as those recently announced developments at ecorpStim."

Professor Andrew Barron, Chair of Low Carbon Energy and Environment at Swansea University, added: "To date HFP has been manufactured for specific applications requiring an extreme focus on purity of one isomer of the HFP compound. This novel application brought to our research team by ecorpStim opens the door for examining a less costly manufacturing process. We are excited to have the opportunity to contribute to a new technology which is in concert with responsible energy development."

John Francis Thrash, CEO of ecorpStim, stated: "Today we are confident that this multi-disciplinary approach will make it possible to reduce the cost of HFP as used in this industrial application to a level at least one full order of magnitude lower than the current cost of pharmaceutical grade HFP, much like the difference between the cost of drinking water versus the cost of water used for intravenous injection, a difference of many orders of magnitude.

“If HFP can be employed in full scale operations at this lower cost, in combination with ecorpStim's development of highly efficient capture and recycling systems, the effective cost in the field of Non-Flammable Propane stimulation should prove to be equal if not less than the cost to produce gas utilising presently available water fracking methods."

Adapted from press release by Katie Woodward

Read the article online at: https://www.oilfieldtechnology.com/drilling-and-production/28072014/ecorpstim-advances-nfp-stimulation-technology-1135/