Resumen de The proppant choice
"The trend in proppant sizing in unconventional gas wells had been toward smaller proppants in the hope that more of the proppant could be placed farther into the reservoir. With the shift back toward oily reservoirs, the need for higher proppant conductivity to move liquids at high rates has caused a shift back toward larger proppant sizes," explained Kevin Fisher in a recent American Oil and Gas article.
Additionally, resin-coated sand helps to prevent fines clogging up the proppant pack in the well and lowering conductivity, "when that sand [resin-coated] breaks, and it's still going to break even if you put the resin on it, the resin will hold all the fines together so the shards don't flow through the proppant pack and plug things up," [Terry Palisch] told IM.
"The wars get fought at the boundaries so if there was some displacement it would, for example, be a high-end resin-coated sand versus a low-end ceramic proppant," [Bryan Shinn] explained to IM. Despite this slight displacement, the market shares will remain consistent: "We don't see any dramatic share shifts in the market and we are not projecting that in the future," he added.
