Bear Creek Services

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Since its’ inception in 2001, Bear Creek Services LLC has grown into a unique oilfield consulting and service company.  This diverse and respected Louisiana-based company began as Bear Creek Environmental Systems with “a small fleet of vacuum trucks and a saltwater disposal facility in Bryceland, Louisiana” and today offers a full suite of services including Engineering and Wellsite Supervision, Environmental Consulting, Trucking and Fluid Disposal Services, Clear Fluid Sales & Service, and Petrochemical Sales & Services.

In 2005 the company began offering environmental consulting services with a primary focus on the oil and gas industries. Presently Bear Creek's Environmental Consulting Division is “promoting remediation and reclamation technology transfer into the oilfield to expand our client's options for managing fluid releases and waste water” according to their online company biography.

By 2006, through a merger with McGinnis Industries, Bear Creek expanded into Petroleum Engineering. McGinnis has offered consulting petroleum engineering and wellsite supervision since 1990 which significantly enhanced the company’s wealth of knowledge and service portfolio. 

In 2008 Bear Creek Environmental Systems, LLC was renamed Bear Creek Services, LLC in order to better reflect the vast range of products and services they offer to the oil and gas industry. In 2009, Bear Creek expanded its trucking and disposal division and launched its Fluid Sales & Service Division.  Bear Creek’s customers are recognizing the value in having fewer contractors to deal with to meet their various needs and the value-added nature of bundling sets of services.
Casting an eye over their record of steady growth and their most recent developments, Bear Creek looks all the more promising. IRJ caught up with Dr. Nathan Hutchings, Bear Creek Services’ President and COO, as he revealed to us an exciting new development with the potential to revolutionize water reclamation with practically no carbon footprint: Bear Creek’s Green Machine.

THE BEAR CREEK GREEN MACHINE
The research and development division within Bear Creek Services stands out with a new machine to reclaim oilfield wastewater.

“The Green Machine is a wastewater reclamation system that has a very small carbon footprint, which is a big bold statement! The whole machine runs off of a very, very small amount of conventional energy” Hutchings says.

“For example, we’ve been able to clean over 500 barrels of reserve pit water on less than 20 gallons of gasoline and a five kilowatt generator, which is a tiny amount of energy compared to the energy consumption of other water reclamation systems. So it’s very, very green in that sense.  Although the Green Machine requires energy to reclaim water, we’re harnessing the energy that’s in the chemistry to drive the process.  The potential energy in the chemistry is currently wasted in the oil field by accident.”

Hutchings says that the technology used within this process is quite remarkable.

“The key technology inside the units is called forward osmosis (FO), and our partner, HTI (Hydration Technologies Incorporated), designs the FO membranes.  FO differs from reverse osmosis and other membrane technology by using a clean solution with a high concentration of salt, sugar, or other substance to draw the water through the membrane rather than push it through with pressure” he says.  The solids and solutes in the waste water stay on the dirty side of the membrane, and the water is selectively drawn through to the clean side of the membrane.

Hutchings also explains that the fluid produced by the reclamation of drilling waste during this process is of a very high quality.

“It’s crystal clear, and we can control the concentration of salt in the produced fluid to be what our client’s need for the completion stages of their well.  The fluid has a very long shelf life and it’s affordable. So when you put all of this together we can help reduce the strain on the fresh water resources and help reduce the carbon footprint of the industry while using a currently wasted alternative energy, furthermore, by reducing the volume of waste to hauled off and the need for bringing additional products to the location, we can further reduce the carbon footprint on the industry” Hutchings says.

“We give the client an affordable, eco-friendly product that they’re going to buy anyway for the next stage of their well while reducing their waste volume, and all of that can happen through one trailer-mounted machine that can be set up on a remote location in just a few hours.”

WHAT’S NEXT FOR BEAR CREEK?
The ‘Bear Creek Green Machine’ is an excellent example of the innovative, client-supportive developments taking place within the company; however it’s not their only unique value-added project. Another subject Hutchings places great interest in is the potential for further use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS), another one of Bear Creek’s many services.

“I really believe that the oil and gas industry is going to become more dependent on GIS (and they should become more dependent on GIS) to integrate the data gathered in the oil patch with the GIS systems of the municipalities, regulatory agencies, the highway departments, and even the census bureau. Integrating those information networks and superimposing them on a geographical model offers a wealth of knowledge to really add value to the long-term sustainability of the industry- and that is yet to be capitalized on effectively” Hutchings says.

Bear Creek’s mission is “to deliver services that lead to your success using our expertise and knowledge. Bear Creek will manage your projects like they are our own.  When you choose Bear Creek, your goals become our goals, and we are with you every step of the way.”

Their diverse suite of quality services, and sights set firmly on developing value-added innovations are great indicators of their client commitment, industry expertise, and foresight into helping solve the next generation of problems facing the industry. Expect big things from Bear Creek!