Data-driven chemistry for oilfield growth

June 19, 2026

Ryan Ezell, CEO of Flotek Industries, talks to The Energy Year about how data analytics is becoming the main impetus behind the company’s chemistry business and the technological capabilities that are enabling profitable expansion across geographies and energy applications.

Flotek Industries is a provider of oilfield chemicals and drilling analytics software.

• Data analytics is becoming central to oilfield chemistry. Real-time measurement and chemometric modelling are transforming a previously product-led business into a data-driven service model to improve operational decisions.
• Oilfield services are moving towards a more collaborative ecosystem in which technology providers with proprietary capabilities can create value by integrating their solutions with larger service and equipment companies.
• As gas demand grows due to the proliferation of frac fleets and data centres, gas conditioning technologies for behind-the-meter power are becoming more important for reliability and asset protection.

 

How has the incorporation of data analytics into Flotek Industries’ speciality chemicals business impacted your operations?
Flotek Industries has been publicly traded for more than two decades, and the business has made quite a transformation. We have always been focused on speciality chemistry – particularly surfactant technologies, hydraulic fracturing, drilling fluids and cementing chemicals – but the long-term strategy was about how we deliver value to customers and back to shareholders through innovative solutions.
Since 2015, the EBITDA multiples and valuations for a majority of chemical businesses have been compressed. At our peak market cap back in 2014, Flotek was trading at a multiple of about 12-13, but now those oilfield businesses have moved to 4.5-5, so the aim was to gear the company towards revenue and profitability growth, and to improve our multiples, market cap and valuation.
The way to do that was to pivot from the core chemistry into more opex-related, less cyclical parts of the oil and gas business, leveraging real-time chemistry measurements. In 2020, we created a data analytics segment that uses proprietary technologies to monitor chemistry and flow in real time.
2026 might be the year in which data analytics becomes our primary business driver. It already accounts for nearly 50% of our gross profit, and our expectation is for that business to move closer to 60% of gross profit by the end of 2026, if not before, and we would like its share to keep growing.
Data analytics has become our primary means of making chemistry decisions. The competitive edge of our service offerings is not only speed and accuracy in measurement – we also have 10 years and multiple exabytes of data in the cloud for chemometric modelling that can tell us whether we need to turn a valve, add a chemistry molecule or understand what output a molecule has produced. Chemistry becomes almost like the gravy, with the main course being the data.

What capabilities does Flotek leverage to compete with larger oilfield services providers?
Our leverage is intellectual property and differentiated technology. We know what we are good at, and we know what they are good at. Many of our customers may have a big share of the market for hydraulic fracturing pumps in the US, but we can sell technology to make their pumps perform better, such as gas conditioning equipment or fracking fluids.
I see the oilfield services business coming together as an ecosystem. Companies with proprietary technologies can license, move in and work side by side with oilfield services and equipment providers. Our relationship with ProFrac has been essential to us in this respect. At the start of 2021, we represented less than 1% of the fracking fluids sold in North America. We needed a step change in volume, and we were able to sign a 10-year supply agreement with ProFrac worth about USD 2.2 billion to provide chemistry for up to 30 frac fleets per year. That gave us the economies of scale we needed to improve our efficiency, improve our capital discipline and drive our valuation.
ProFrac was also the first company to transition to using our PWRtek technology, which we acquired in 2025. PWRtek measures the quality of unprocessed flare gas used for generating electric power. When it detects bad gas, it switches the generation equipment to compressed gas or diesel, preventing damage to engines. The technology can also provide real-time gas blending for optimal engine performance, no matter the conditions.
Reciprocating engines and turbines typically run on 1,050-btu gas, and if they receive bad flare gas at 1,350 btu, they can over-rev, overheat or even explode. Half a dozen frac fleets caught fire in North America in 2025 because of bad gas, and our equipment can prevent that.
That same value proposition applies to data centres, which need massive amounts of power and need to run constantly. Our equipment can take any gas source and condition it into predictable, usable fuel for behind-the-meter power generation. It can also support small power sites for disaster recovery. The further you go into applications using unrefined, associated or rich gas to generate power, the stronger our value proposition becomes.

Which international markets are having the largest impact on your top-line growth?
Our international chemistry revenue grew 280% in Q1 2025, with the Middle East and Latin America leading that surge. I spent the majority of my career working in international businesses, and I recognised that Flotek was being punished for being heavily focused on North America. I told the board and the investment community that to achieve growth and deliver value, we were going to get out and pursue international customers.
We put together an R&D plan to get our fluids approved by Saudi Aramco, and anybody who has ever done that knows it doesn’t happen overnight. There are several phases for approvals, trials, field deployment, pricing and other steps. It was a multi-year effort. Then we created an entity in the UAE through which we sell directly to ADNOC – primarily conventional stimulation and acid chemistries – and also began to work in Oman and Iraq.
Partnerships have been essential to executing that strategy. The energy and infrastructure business is evolving in a way where you consistently cross paths with the same talented people. Integrity and solid collaboration go a long way, as does investment in local development through procurement, localisation and talent development.

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