Clariant has opened a new High Throughput Experimentation (HTE) laboratory in Houston, Texas, USA.  The Swiss specialty chemicals producer said the location in the heart of the US energy and petrochemicals belt is key as the new facility will be the first of its kind supporting the oil & gas industry.

The setup in Texas, which comes shortly after the group’s recent investment in its Midland, Texas, and Clinton, Oklahoma facilities, is part of its global initiative to expand HTE capabilities to all of its business worldwide.

While the innovative HTE approach and methodology, in which automated instrumentation, specialized software tools and alternative techniques provide optimized formulations in a rapid timeframe, has been widely used in other industries for many years, Clariant said it is the first company to adopt this technology for the oil & gas industry as a standard tool.

As a new addition to the existing lab located at Clariant Oil Services headquarters, the new Houston facility will help to meet current and outstanding needs in the oil & gas industry, with special emphasis on pour point depressants, hydrate inhibitors, asphaltene inhibitors, corrosion inhibitors and scale inhibitors, the Swiss group said.

Jonathan Wylde, head of innovation and application development at Clariant Oil and Mining Services, said that with the new state-of-the-art equipment in the lab, along with advanced research concepts and potential customization for specific projects, the chemical producer’s researchers are now able to identify new formulations and synergistic blends for specific customer crudes, ultimately reducing the time to market for new products.