Selecting appropriate proppants is an important part of hydraulic-fracture completion design. Proppant selection choices have increased in recent years as regional sands have become the proppant of choice in many liquid-rich shale plays. But are these new proppants the best long-term choices to maximize production? Do they provide the best well economics?

The paper presents a brief historical perspective on proppant selection followed by various detailed studies of how different proppant types have performed in various unconventional onshore US basins (Williston, Permian, Eagle Ford, and Powder River), along with economic analyses. As the shale revolution pushed into lower-quality reservoirs, the concept of dimensionless conductivity has pushed our industry to use ever lower-quality materials—away from ceramics and resin-coated proppant to white sand in some Rocky Mountain plays, and more recently from white sand to regional sand in the Permian and Eagle Ford plays.

Further, we compare early-to-late-time production response and economics in liquid-rich wells where proppant type changed. The performance of various proppant types and mesh sizes is evaluated using a combination of different techniques, including big-data multivariate statistics, laboratory-conductivity testing, detailed fracture and reservoir modeling, as well as direct well-group comparisons. The results of these techniques are then combined with economic analyses to provide a perspective on proppant-selection criteria. The comparisons are anchored to permeability estimates from production history matching and diagnostic fracture injection tests (DFITs) and thousands of wellsite-proppant-conductivity tests to determine dimensionless conductivity estimates that best approach what is obtained in the field.

Dimensionless fracture conductivity is the main driver of well performance because it relates to proppant selection thanks to the inclusion of the relationship of fracture conductivity provided by the proppant relative to the actual flow capacity of the rock (the product of permeability and effective fracture length), which is supported by the production analyses in the paper. The paper shows how much fracture conductivity is adequate for a given effective fracture length and reservoir permeability and then looks at the economics of achieving this “just-good-enough” target conductivity, either through less proppant mass with higher-cost proppants or more proppant mass with lower-cost proppants, as well as mesh-size considerations.

This paper does not rely on a single technique for proppant selection but uses a combination of various data sources, analysis techniques, and economic criteria to provide a more holistic approach to proppant selection.

选择合适的支撑剂是水力压裂完井设计的重要组成部分。近年来，随着区域性砂成为许多富含液体的页岩气中的支撑剂选择，支撑剂选择的选择有所增加。但是这些新支撑剂是最大化产量的最佳长期选择吗？他们提供最好的油井经济学吗？

本文介绍了有关支撑剂选择的简要历史观点，随后进行了各种详细研究，研究了在美国非常规陆上盆地（威利斯顿，二叠纪，伊格福特和粉河）不同支撑剂类型的表现以及经济分析。随着页岩革命推向低质量的油藏，无因次电导率的概念促使我们的行业使用越来越低质量的材料，例如在落基山的一些油田中，从陶瓷和树脂支撑剂到白砂，最近从白色在二叠纪和Eagle Ford中扮演区域性角色。

此外，我们在支撑剂类型发生变化的富含液体的油井中比较了早期到后期的生产响应和经济性。各种支撑剂类型和筛孔尺寸的性能是使用不同技术的组合进行评估的，包括大数据多元统计，实验室电导率测试，详细的裂缝和储层建模以及直接的井群对比。然后将这些技术的结果与经济分析相结合，以提供有关支撑剂选择标准的观点。这些比较基于生产历史匹配和诊断性裂缝注入测试（DFIT）以及数千个井场支撑剂电导率测试的渗透率估算值，以确定无量纲的电导率估算值，该估算值最接近本领域获得的估算值。

无因次裂缝传导率是油井性能的主要驱动力，因为它与支撑剂的选择有关，这归因于支撑剂提供的裂缝传导率与岩石的实际流量（渗透率和有效裂缝长度的乘积）之间的关系，本文的生产分析对此提供了支持。本文显示了对于给定的有效裂缝长度和储层渗透率，多少裂缝电导率是足够的，然后探讨了通过较少的支撑剂质量，较高的支撑剂或更多的支撑剂来实现这种“足够好”的目标电导率的经济性。成本较低的支撑剂，以及筛孔尺寸的考虑。

本文不依赖于单一技术来选择支撑剂，而是结合了各种数据源，分析技术和经济标准来提供更全面的支撑剂选择方法。