Area Development
Preferred Sands, a proppant, well logistics and resin technology company, opened its Preferred Technology Center in Houston, Texas.

Company officials said its new facility aligns with Preferred's keenness for partnering with best-in-class industry leaders to address and solve industry difficulties and inefficiencies. This expansion will allow the firm to further collaborate in developing high performance technology solutions for more efficient and cost effective well sites. The Preferred Technology Center creates a new hub for industry-responsive innovation in one of the most active geographic regions for hydraulic fracturing.

"Innovation – whether through product or process – is critical in our rapidly changing marketplace," said Michael O'Neill, founder and CEO of Preferred. "As a company, we believe that the sustained approach to R&D, now established with the opening of our facility, will allow us to partner with best-in-class individuals to provide first-class technology, equipment and resources to our customers in our continued efforts to anticipate the needs of next-generation well sites."

Bob McDaniel, vice president of technology for Preferred and a 35-year veteran of the oil and gas industry, will oversee a team of researchers at the new Houston-based facility. McDaniel is responsible for inventing a wide variety of new hydraulic fracturing products and treatments, which have led to 11 U.S. patents awarded and six new U.S. patents pending.

Preferred's Technology Center will continue to develop Preferred's clean line of resin coatings, RCS Garnet and RCS Pearl, for both high and low temperature wells. Company officials said its Preferred RCS resin-coated sand product line, developed in conjunction with The Dow Chemical Company, is the market's leading alternative to phenolic-based resins since launching in 2012. It is the only low-temperature resin-coated proppant with a built-in activation mechanism, creating a more efficient and safer low-temperature down-well environment.