Peak shale oil and fracking activity drives demand for Eden’s Optiblend in the USA

Eden Innovations says demand for its Optiblend diesel generators in the USA and India is rebounding after a tepid past 9 months as hydraulic stimulation, known as fracking, hits a peak driving record shale oil and gas production abroad.

Demand remains high in the United States, partly due to a recent reduction in strategic reserves, Eden said, which meant there was no need to reduce production costs.

OptiBlend systems enable diesel-powered generators that power the drilling rigs and hydraulic fracking equipment, to run on up to 60% natural gas, sometimes drawing it straight out of the ground, or from on-site natural gas storage, thereby significantly reducing the overall costs of the drilling and fracking.

The company said that during the initial oil and shale gas boom in 2012, a drilling contractor advised that they were able to recover, in less than two months, the total cost of the buying and installing an OptiBlend system in fuel cost savings by using natural gas drawn from an earlier well on site to replace approximately 60% of the diesel fuel that would otherwise have been required.

The company said recent interest in its services had come from two companies, one in Oklahoma and the other in Texas, which were contemplating using itsystems for their fleets of drilling rigs over the next 6-9 months , collectively entailing approximately 30 rigs, which could boost OptiBlend revenue up to US$1.5m.

In both the USA and India another driver increasing interest in OptiBlend services was the need to increase back-up power generating capacity, arising out of power outages, which often resulted in an increasing number of extreme and often extended weather events.

In summer, in both countries experienced hotter temperatures over longer periods, with power increasingly under stress, largely due to an ever- increased demand for air conditioning.

In the US other extreme weather events, notably tornados and hurricanes, also interrupted power supplies to communities, often for days and over wide areas. One outage several years ago lasted for four days in Texas due to a freezing ice storm.

Optiblend has sold over 300 systems over the past 14 years in the USA , India, Middle East, Africa and East Asia.

Eden Innovations was down 20% mid-morning, trading at 2 cents.