Check out Mark at themarkcorp.com or recycle-frac-water.com

Mark: Hey, folks let’s learn something new about the oil and gas industry.

All right. We’re in beautiful Houston, Texas and it’s freezing outside, although only in Houston would you say anything below 60 is freezing. And we’re sitting here with Mark Stanley.

Hi, Mark.

Mark S:  Hey. How are you, Mark?

Mark: Yeah.

Mark S: remember too.

Mark: Yeah, if we can’t remember each other’s name something is wrong. And so, today we’re spending some time talking about a very serious issue in the industry especially in the frack fields. It’s also an issue all over the world and it’s water recycling.

So, Mark you are heavily involved in water recycling?

Mark S: Yes. That’s correct. The main corporation is called the Mark Corporation and one of the groups within our company is called Recycling Services and Recycling makes equipment that recycles frack flow back water, produced water. We can actually do industrial water treatment, petro refinery waste, all types of waste water treatment. Treats up the contaminated water and then brings it back to the users for reuse again, fit for purpose.

Mark: Yeah. And so, let me get this straight because you and I were talking before, when I think of water recycling, I think of expensive. But you’re telling me that y’all actually can do it and drive efficiencies lower cost in this low crude price environment?

Mark S: That’s correct. One of the things that I find interesting is that when oil was between $80 and $100 a barrel, nobody would really pay attention to what we were talking about even though they knew that recycling was probably the correct thing to do and it can be an efficient thing to do, they were so busy making money that they were – didn’t want to do anything different just pump as much as they could down the pipeline and don’t bother me.

Once oil dropped below $50 a barrel, I started getting a lot more inquiries into what we were doing service-wise, hey, can you really save us the amount of money you said you could save us before. And now that oil is hovering around $30, $31 a barrel, I’m getting even more interest in the product.

And they’re all – it’s mobile you can pick it up and move it where you want. It doesn’t take a lot of infrastructure and we think we have the most cost-effective system that’s available on the market for recycling. And if we get, you know, four to five units out there, we can probably recycle the water for pretty close to what it would cost to just bring in freshwater for you.

Mark: Yeah. So, that’s awesome. So, it actually drives efficiency it lowers cost, it’s actually good, right? Because you’re taking this water and being able to reuse it and the industry as a whole has taken a bit of a black eye in their approach to environment. So, this is an environmentally friendly positive way that the oil and gas industry can use water?

Mark S: That’s correct. One of the things you have to look at is the total overall package, so if you’re not going to recycle this water, you’ve got to dispose of it in some way and form and fashion. And so, the traditional way of doing that’s been put it down to disposal well. If you put it down to disposal well, that’s an environmental liability for the company and there’s a lot of negative publicity about, you know, disposing of it down in well pumping it down the aquifer.

The other thing you have to look is risk management. You know if you can recycle it on site, how many truck miles can you take off the road, you don’t have all these tractor trailer equipment on the road, you know, you have all the risk assessment, no environmental liabilities. And, last year just because recycling, I know one company that said they estimated they save 2.5 million miles off the road which is a trip to the moon and back.

Mark: Yeah. That is enormous. So, drop cost for the industry especially for the frackers, it’s good for the environment, it helps the industry being seen in a more positive light in the media, and then also parts of the word there is actually a shortage of freshwater and you actually help with that as well.

Mark S: That’s correct. We’ve found a lot of the success now in getting a lot of traction in the Middle East where water is obviously is scarce resource. It only rains maybe one or two days out of the year. They struggle a lot with finding any type of freshwater because all that water has to be desalinated which is a very expensive process. They would rather keep the desalinated water for their population to drink or for their agriculture market whatever they have and so, recycling of their water is huge. Sometimes they have to wait seven to ten days in order to fracture a well just to get enough freshwater to be able to do it. Whereas, we’re positioned on site we can give them that water immediately.

Mark: And so, you also benefit local populations where there’s a shortage of freshwater. So, Mark this is some awesome stuff. If my audience wanted to find out more about what you do, where should they go?

Mark S: We have to websites. The main company website is www.themarkcorp.com and then, you can also look if they want to be more specific on recycling, they can go to recycle-frac-water.com.

Mark: And, folks we’ll put a links in the show notes so you don’t need to be writing stuff down.

Mark, man thank you so much for your time.

Mark S: You’re welcome, Mark. It’s been my pleasure. Thank you very much.

Mark: Folks, I hope this helped. We will see you next time.