Coatings World - April 2015

by by John D. Jacquin, Chemark Consulting www.linkedin.com/in/johnjacquin

Growth in Energy Extraction

Last month’s Business Corner reviewed the substantial growth in U.S. energy resources extracted from tight oil and gas shale formations by hydraulic fracturing (fracking). Despite a substantial decline in global crude oil prices initiated late in 2014, a significant decrease in the number of shale drilling rigs and an unprecedented inventory surplus, U.S. production of crude oil is estimated to have continued to rise in 1Q14. Whether or not this six year growth trend will level off, or even decline in 2015, the volume of crude oil extracted is still expected to be substantial in 2015.

Two important elements required to achieve profitable business growth are developing new markets and leveraging loyalty to capitalize on the opportunities. The focus of this month’s analysis will be a review of the fracking process to extract oil and gas from tight shale formations, and the identification coatings types and related new technologies that are emerging to support this world changing event.

The Big Picture

The general hydraulic fracking process was diagramed in last
month’s article. However, before any tight gas or oil can be extract-
ed, the shale field must be developed. As shown in the simplified
schematic, the site must be prepared, the infrastructure constructed,
the wells must be drilled vertically and horizontally, fractured, and
then the tight gas or crude oil resources can be conducted from the
field. Each step of the process requires a substantial transportation
component to move construction equipment and materials into
the site, provide raw materials at regular intervals, and remove the
crude product. Each phase of the process, including the transporta-
tion component, involves products that must be specifically coated
to meet the performance requirements of the process. Further, the
hydraulic fracking process has a special product coating require-
ment, and also uses many types of resins and specialty chemicals
that are common to coating formulation.

The transportation vehicles delivering to the frack site include flatbeds, hoppers, and tank trucks or railcars. However, the high volume, reoccurring deliveries of raw materials, such as sand or water-based chemicals have the most significant impact on coatings growth. Extracted crude is usually shipped out of the shale field by pipeline or rail. Although more than 2/3 of the crude oil production is transported to refineries by pipeline, in the last six years it is estimated that crude oil shipments by rail car in North America have increased by a magnitude of 50X. That’s fifty times the volume - to around half a million rail cars in 2014. This has required a substantial effort to retrofit vehicles to transport product in and out of the site, and coatings are specified to meet the performance needs of the transported goods.

• Thus, chemical, corrosion or abrasion resistant epoxy, phenolic, 100% solids aromatic polyureas or even bis-A free epoxies may be specified for interior tanker linings. Exterior durable urethane based coatings may be specified for hoppers and tanker exteriors, over an epoxy primer.

• Due to the size of the vehicles, moderate cure temperatures and long bake times are typical, with varying metal thicknesses and film builds requiring complete through-cure.

• Pipelines are typically coated with corrosion resistant functional fusion bonded epoxy powder coatings applied via a fluidized bed to withstand underground environments.