Come learn how one man went from Roustabout to President, plus learn about drilling fluids, quality and social media all in one place. To learn more about Unique Drilling Fluids click here.

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

All right. We’re sitting here today with Chet and Gianni with Unique Drilling Fluids Inc. How are you doing, Gianni?

Gianni: Very well.

Mark: Chet?

Chet: Outstanding. Thank you very much.

Mark: So let me tell you a little funny story. So, Chet stalks me on social media. He reaches out to me and we formed this relationship and we’ve actually formed a really good relationship without ever meeting in person. This is the first time we’ve met in person, isn’t it?

Chet: Yes, sir. Yes, sir. It is.

Mark: And so, I’ve been able to help you and you’ve been able to help me and it’s just a really cool place where people can meet online and form a relationship and develop a friendship and a business relationship.

Chet: Yes, it is.

Mark: And so, Gianni owns a really unique company. They do drilling fluids, but it’s actually so much more than that. But Gianni has a really fascinating story, so let’s kind of start in the beginning. How did you get in oil and gas industry?

Gianni: Well, I was a teenager about — just turning 18 years old and living at New Orleans at that time, a lot of oil companies, drilling fluid companies, you know, drilling outfits were located and centralized in New Orleans. And so, kind of state put a high tax on which is now all of them are in Houston, so it was – it was known to be a pretty lucrative business, a few of my friends, my uncle was in it actually, he was electronic tech and said, “Hey, man you should go to oil path.” So I was happy I did, I went there start it off as a roustabout. I worked my way up the rig floor driller, then, you know, I was always curious, I knew the application of the muds and chemicals cement in the industry, I mean, you know, in the – on the rigs, but I didn’t understand the chemistry behind it. I wanted to know, you know, what this was, I knew what it did and what it was supposed to do, but I want to dig deeper.

So, I went back to school got my Chemistry degree and started working as an R&D chemist for a drilling fluids company – chemical company and that’s when I – I started developing it to my own developing products, understanding what that was I was working with in the field such as tall oil, fatty acids, polymers, etc. So that’s how I started, that’s where we are now.

Mark: What a fascinating story. So, you literally out of high school started as a roustabout on a rig, went back to college, became a chemist, and now, you run Unique Drilling Fluids which is a drilling fluids company?

Gianni: Yes, sir. We’re a chemical manufacturer – oilfield chemical manufacturing. And we do a variety of products not just drilling fluids, but cement additives, stimulation chemicals which are real popular now, completion chemicals as well. So, we try to do a well-balanced integrative systems applicable to those – those sectors.

Mark: Yeah. And so, I don’t know if you noticed this folks, one of the things he mentioned was he’s a manufacturer. Do you know how rare that is today? And just to be bluntly honest, there’s a lot of really, I’m just going to use the word crappy fluids out there coming from overseas because not very many people manufacture more. You all still manufacture, so you have complete control over that quality chain?

Gianni: Exactly, which is critical in my formulations. I want to ensure that, you know, my clients have the strongest material, the, you know, as you said a lot of crap coming in from China. Yeah, it looks great on surface, as soon as you applies temperature to it you pump it down the hole, it come back water thin on the, you know, on the return. So, we do high concentration, good raw material. You have to realize U.S. has the best raw material in the world collectively you know, so, in over wide variety of products and chemicals. So, we do, we from the beginning to the end, we deal with the chemical.

Mark: Yeah. And that is awesome. And it’s something else you do which is also rare in this industry. You actually have a research and development part?

Gianni: We do. I mean no fluid additive system should go out untested. We have to constantly test our material, we have to constantly develop and innovate new systems that work for different application, different temperatures, pressures, so we have to do our R&D. Any chemical company that’s not – that doesn’t have an R&D department is exactly what you said putting out crappy products you know.

Mark: Yeah. So, that what makes them unique and they’re actually good people, they believe in doing good business which is one of the reasons that we’re actually sitting here together here in Houston, Texas.

So, if somebody wanted to find out more about what you do, where should they go?

Gianni: They should visit us online, www.uniquedrillingfluids.com. We have our entire product portfolio in there, little history about us, our different locations. We’re global, so we’re not just in the U.S. In fact, we do a lot of business in the UAE, Middle East, all over, so very versatile company.

Mark:  Yeah. And, folks we’ll put a link in the show notes, so you won’t need to be writing notes. So, Gianni thank you so much for your time.

Gianni: Thank you very much.

Mark: And, Chet, nice to see you again brother. Thank you.

Chet: Thank you. Thank you for being here, thank you for everything that you do at Modal Point. It’s definitely a pleasure. I appreciate it.

Gianni: Very impressive, very impressive what you’re doing, bringing the news to the people.

Mark: So, folks…

Gianni: Bringing the news to the people.

Mark: Yeah, we try. So, folks, I hope this helped. We will see you next time.