Download: Guar beans ? Worth a fracking fortune ….
Oil and gas companies race to find guar bean replacement key ingredient for fracking
Oil and gas companies are racing to find a new replacement for India’s guar bean, one of the key ingredient used in hydraulic fracturing, the drilling technology that has revolutionized the energy industry by opening up vast new fields for production. Found mostly in India, the guar bean extract produces a gel used as a fracking fluid that delivers “proppant” to hold open cracks in shale rock when it is fracked.
Within 24 hours in June, two Texas lawyers filed trademark applications for “AquaPerm” and “PermStim.” What may at first sound like hair products are actually substitutes for guar, a crucial ingredient in the fluid that is injected into fracked wells to extract oil and gas.
Emerging from the labs of Baker Hughes Inc and Halliburton Co, respectively, the two products hit the market in the second quarter, in response to guar costs that had in some cases nearly doubled from the level of the previous three months because of a guar shortage. Other companies that are exploring substitutes include Nabors Industries Ltd, Trican Well Service and Ashland Inc.
Guar prices have eased somewhat, but any substitute is still a big prize for oil services companies as they try to stabilize costs.
