Clariant upgrades facility in Midland, Texas, to significantly strengthen R&D capabilities and expand support to oil services customers 

• Inaugural opening of state-of-the-art laboratory with unique capabilities to support oil services customers with Permian Basin activities
• Facility enhancements include larger blending plant, tank farm and a new 10-bay fleet maintenance building
• Upgrades to deliver better logistics, faster turnaround, higher precision in analysis and mitigation of bottlenecks catered to improve customer operations

Muttenz, October 2, 2018 – Clariant, a world leader in specialty chemicals, today announced the inauguration of a new state-of-the-art laboratory at its facility in Midland, Texas. This capital investment upgraded several key infrastructure elements of the operations center. Most prominent is the state-of-the-art laboratory, which is Clariant Oil Services fourth Regional Technical Laboratory in North America. The laboratory has almost doubled in size and is now equipped with industry-leading research and automation equipment. As such, it will increase sample activity undertaken for regional Permian Basin oil and gas producers by up to 45 percent over the pre-existing test center.

“The significant investment made at Midland follows on from our major upgrade in Clinton, Oklahoma announced earlier this year,” said John Dunne, Global Head of Oil & Mining Services, Clariant. “It is further testament to Clariant’s strengthened commitment to grow with our customers located in the Permian and Mid-Con regions, which are both strategically important in the US market.”

The new laboratory is unique within North America in having on-site access to two inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) units, state of the art solids identification equipment, including X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) and X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF), and many other industry leading instruments. All of these are designed to allow Clariant’s chemical specialists to process around 7,000 lab samples per month out of this local Permian based lab and meet its customer expectations for turnaround times. Due to the complexity of unconventional shale production in the Permian basin, this equipment gives Clariant the ability to quickly assess risk factors associated with flow assurance, asset integrity, and oil/water quality, in order to rapidly develop solutions that lower overall cost of operations for its customers. Close proximity to the Clariant technical experts on-site and the local operators ensures real-time customer interaction, while providing simultaneous trouble-shooting to ensure chemical efficacy, such as scale prevention and paraffin inhibition.

In addition to its showcase laboratory, Clariant will be able to provide increased support to its customers through a newly operational blending plant, ensuring security of supply and the flexibility to produce bespoke products. An upgraded tank farm, 10-bay fleet maintenance facility and enhanced customer sales offices will also augment Clariant’s service offerings to customers in the fastest growing oil basin in the US.

“Clariant’s newly enhanced Midland facility, with its advanced laboratory capabilities and logistics service enhancements are reflective of the importance Clariant attaches to the Permian Basin and North American oil production,” commented Pete Schoemann, Head of Oil Services North America. “Precision in analysis, simplification in logistics, reduction in transportation time and mitigation of bottlenecks – all supplied locally - are fundamental to allow us to grow alongside our customers in the Permian region,” he added.

“The upgraded facility in Midland, Texas is a bright example of Clariant’s ongoing commitment and strategic focus on innovation through R&D,” said Deepak Parikh, President, Region North America. “We are excited that the company can continue to attract highly-skilled, specialized employees with the addition of more labs such as these.”

With 50+ sites, over 2,400 employees and a turnover of around $1.25 billion across the US and Canada, Clariant has already established itself as a significant specialty chemicals player in North America. The company's four R&D and six technical innovation centers based from California to North Carolina and from Texas to Illinois – along with its leading university partnerships - are the backbones of its innovation drive for the North American market.

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