The Oilfield Technology Group (OTG) of Hexion Specialty Chemicals, has announced the startup of a new manufacturing plant and the opening of additional transload facilities to provide resin coated proppants to fracturing service companies and operators in the oil & gas industry.

Hexion has commissioned the first production line in its new manufacturing plant in Cleburne, TX, which produces its patented ValuBond curable resin coated proppant. This new plant along with its specially designed transload operation is well positioned to serve the surrounding Barnett Shale area. Exploration companies operating in the Barnett as well as other areas will now have access to a larger supply of resin coated proppants, including Hexion's newly introduced ValuBond 20/40 mesh proppant.

In addition to the Cleburne transload facility, and to provide customers with an efficient and cost-effective supply of proppants, Hexion also has opened new proppant transload facilities in the following locations:

•Corpus Christi, TX
•Rock Springs, Wyo.
•Fairview, N.D.
•Batesville, Ark.

The Corpus Christi location serves the emerging Eagle Ford Shale play in south Texas, while to the north, the Rock Springs facility primarily serves Wyoming and Colorado. The Fairview transload facility supplies the rapidly developing Bakken play in Montana and North Dakota, while the Batesville transload supplies the Fayetteville Shale area in Arkansas.

Resin coated proppants are used in the hydraulic fracturing process to help optimize production from oil and gas wells by maximizing fracture flow capacity from the reservoir to the wellbore. Technological innovations and Hexion's introduction of enhanced materials have expanded the use of resin coated proppants into unconventional reservoirs that feature complex and hard to reach geological formations.