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WIKI ANALYSIS
Newpark Resources, Inc. is a provider of integrated fluids management, environmental and oilfield services to the oil and gas exploration and production (E and P) industry. The Company primarily operates in the United States, particularly in the Gulf Coast, west Texas, the Mid-continent and the Rocky Mountains. Newpark also has operations in Canada, Mexico and areas of Europe and North Africa surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. The Company organizes its business into three principal segments. The Fluids Systems and Engineering segment principally provides drilling fluids systems and engineering services and onsite drilling management services. The Mat and Integrated Services provides prefabricated interlocking mat systems for constructing drilling and work sites, as well as integrated onsite and offsite environmental services. Environmental services offers disposal services for both oilfield E and P waste and E and P waste contaminated with naturally occurring radioactive material.
In September 2007, the Company completed the acquisition of substantially all of the assets and operations of SEM Construction Company (SEM). SEM is a full-service well site construction company engaged in construction, reclamation, maintenance and general rig work for the oil and gas industry at drilling locations throughout Western Colorado.
Fluids Systems and Engineering
The Company's drilling fluids business offers solutions to highly technical drilling projects involving complex subsurface conditions, such as horizontal drilling, geographically deep drilling or deep water drilling. Newpark sells drilling fluids products and services to its primary market areas in the United States, western Canada and in areas of Europe and North Africa adjacent to the Mediterranean Sea. The Company owns the patent rights to a family of water-based products, which it markets as the DeepDrill and FlexDrill systems. These systems include up to 10 performance-enhancing components, each formulated for environmental protection. This technology also led to the development of the NewPhase product, a component of the Company's water-based product line, which is used to create high performance fluid systems tailored to the drilling problems created by the reactive shale strata encountered in the Mid-Continent and Rocky Mountain region.
Newpark grinds barite and other industrial minerals at facilities in Channelview and Corpus Christi, Texas, New Iberia and Morgan City, Louisiana, and Dyersburg, Tennessee. It also has a contract grinding agreement under which a contract mill in Brownsville, Texas, grinds raw barite supplied by the Company for a fixed fee. Newpark uses the resulting products in its drilling fluids business and sells them to industrial users. The Company sells a variety of other minerals, principally to industrial markets, from its main plant in Channelview, Texas, and from the plant in Dyersburg, Tennessee.
Mat and Integrated Services
The Company provides mats to the oil and gas industry to ensure all-weather access to E and P sites in the unstable soil conditions common along the onshore Gulf of Mexico and Western Canada. It uses both a patented interlocking wooden mat system and the Dura-Base composite mat system. Newpark also installs access roads and temporary work sites for pipeline, electrical utility and highway construction projects where soil protection is required by environmental regulations or to assure productivity in unstable soil conditions. The Company has supplied mats on a temporary basis for non-oilfield projects throughout the United States and is working to expand the customer base and this area of its business.
The Company provides a range of services suitable to its customers' oil and gas E and P activities. These services include site assessment; oilfield construction services, including hooking-up and connecting wells, installing production equipment and maintaining the production site and facilities during the life of the well; waste pit design, construction and installation; regulatory compliance assistance, and site remediation and closure.
Environmental Services
The Company processes and disposes of E and P waste generated by its customers. As of the year-end 2006, Newpark operates seven receiving and transfer facilities located along the United States Gulf Coast, from Venice, Louisiana to Corpus Christi, Texas. Waste products are collected at the transfer facilities from three distinct E and P markets: offshore, land and inland waters. In addition, the Company occasionally receives waste from remediation of production facilities in these markets. A fleet of 48 double-skinned barges certified by the United States Coast Guard to transport E and P waste supports these facilities. Waste received at the transfer facilities is moved by barge through the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway to Newpark's processing and transfer facility at Port Arthur, Texas, and if not recycled, is trucked to injection disposal facilities.
Under a permit from the Texas Railroad Commission, the Company operates a 50-acre injection well facility in the Big Hill Field and a facility at a 400-acre site near Fannett, both located in Jefferson County, Texas. The Fannett site was placed in service in 1995 and is Newpark's primary facility for disposing of E and P waste. As of the year-end 2006, the Company has an inventory of approximately 1,250 acres of injection disposal property in Texas and Louisiana. --Tim Plaehn 04:02, February 25, 2008 (PST)
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