Project and Pavement Performance Associated with Energy Development and Production
Author(s):
C.F. Gurganus
Publication Date:
August 2016
Abstract:
From 12,000 to 24,000 oil and gas wells were permitted each year in Texas during the last decade. The rapid development of the state's oil and gas resources has required large volumes of heavily loaded trucks per well developed. This truck traffic has impacted the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) Farm to Market (FM) road network as well as its trunk State Highway (SH) and United States (US) route designated highways. One of the major issues facing TxDOT maintenance forces is the repair of this impacted road network.
Some areas of Texas have a long history with the oil and gas industry. A blessing by a group of nuns in the early 1920s led to the discovery of the oil windfall that is known as the Permian Basin, an area once thought barren of oil. With the advancement of technology in the oil and gas sector, the amount of recoverable oil in the Permian Basin continues to increase each year. Figure 1 displays the geographic location of the Permian Basin, along with the various oil plays contained within the basin.
Certainly, Permian Basin TxDOT districts face challenging times with energy sector traffic, but they do some from a perspective of decades of experience. On the other hand, TxDOT districts such as Corpus Christi and Laredo experienced oilfield traffic that was a drastic change from historical traffic conditions.
The energy sector boom taking place in southern TxDOT districts was a result of a shale play in what has been classified as the Eagle Ford Shale. This play was essentially nonexistent in 2010 before exploding to over 300,000 barrels per day. Figure 2 was borrowed from oilindpendents.org, which borrowed it from Energy Information Administration, part of the U.S. Department of Energy, and displays the geography associated with the Eagle Ford Shale (4). The play has been concentrated toward the southwest with Karnes County being somewhat of an epicenter. This area affects TxDOT Corpus Christi and Laredo districts most directly. Yoakum and San Antonio districts also have roadways affected in the play. Bryan District has seen some effects as the play stretches into Burleson, Washington, and Brazos counties.
In response to the rapid play within the Eagle Ford Shale, TxDOT grouped a set of projects together across the Yoakum, Corpus Christi, San Antonio, and Laredo districts and developed a design-build (DB) contract to perform various types of construction to mitigate the impact heavy oilfield trucks were having on Texas roadways. The DB project originally consisted of eight Laredo District locations, 11 Corpus Christi locations, five Yoakum locations, and three San Antonio locations. Multiple change orders throughout this contract modified and removed some locations.
As a result of the energy sector impacts and the various construction techniques being used by TxDOT, several projects have been selected for performance monitoring. Several of these projects were taken from the DB contract to capture Eagle Ford Shale construction, while a few projects were taken from West Texas and the Permian Basin area. In all, 16 projects have been selected from across the state that deals with energy sector development. Of those 16, 11 are DB projects. A 12th project is from the Corpus Christi district and evaluates the performance of asphalt stabilized base as part of the structural pavement section. The remaining four projects come from western districts dealing with Permian Basin activity.
This document is intended describe construction activities on a variety of roadways, under different geographic and loading conditions. In addition to the summary of activities, for many of the projects, a historical performance, construction performance, and post construction performance review is provided. These reviews offer insight into lessons learned and potential construction method pitfalls and advantages.
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http://tti.tamu.edu/documents/409186/IR-16-05.pdf
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