总部位于休斯敦的 UniversalPressure Pumping 正在进行为期一年的现代化改造工作，该改造工作已触及日常运营的各个主要方面。该服务提供商是钻井承包商 Patterson-UTI 的子公司，其做出的全面努力是为了满足近年来北美压力泵机不断增长的需求。

马力可用性仍然是他们产品的核心。但越来越多的中型服务提供商（例如Universal）也承担了额外的责任，逐渐成为软件开发商、化学分析仪以及现在的低碳解决方案提供商。

沿着这些思路，环球公司正在进行的最重要的举措是与未公开身份的操作员在富含天然气的阿巴拉契亚盆地进行首次半自动水力压裂现场测试。该试点项目正在帮助环球公司与美国行业的一些竞争对手保持一致，这些竞争对手近年来已经采用了不同层次的自动化控制。

这一趋势背后的主要推动力归结为这样一个事实：与人类操作员不同，软件不会在繁忙的工作现场分心，并且可以根据需求和每个泵的运行阈值瞬间决定如何分配马力。

环球公司希望从自动化中获得的最终回报是尽可能多地使用天然气来运行其双燃料机组。

Houston-based Universal Pressure Pumping is in the midst of a year’s long modernization effort that has touched every major aspect of daily operations. The sweeping effort by the service provider, a subsidiary of drilling contractor Patterson-UTI, comes in response to the escalating demands that have been placed on North American pressure pumpers in recent years.

Horsepower availability remains the heart of their offering. But increasingly, even mid-sized service providers such as Universal have assumed additional responsibilities that have progressively made them into software developers, chemical analyzers, and now low-carbon solution providers.

Along these lines, Universal’s most important ongoing initiative is a field test of its first semiautomated hydraulic fracturing spread in the gas-rich Appalachian Basin with an undisclosed operator. The pilot is helping to bring Universal in line with some of its rivals in the US sector that have already adopted various layers of automated controls in recent years.

The big driver behind the trend comes down to the fact that unlike human operators, software doesn’t get distracted on a busy job site and can make split-second decisions on how to distribute horsepower based on demand and each individual pump’s operating thresholds.

The ultimate prize Universal wants from automation is to use as much natural gas as it can to run its dual-fuel units.