Small operation goes big-time

Maybe there’s something about the vast empty space in West Texas that somehow enhances the vision of some residents. Or maybe it’s just that this vision is more figurative than literal — as in the ability to see in the mind’s eye what products and techniques need to be developed for future business needs.

Perhaps the biggest and best example was the foresight exhibited by the founders of what would become a massive petrochemical complex just south of Odessa. The concept looks simple now, but back then no one imagined that the byproducts of natural gas could be turned into useful and profitable substances.

And through the years, other Permian Basin entrepreneurs have dreamed up untold advancements in techniques and equipment to enhance petroleum extraction and processing.

And we’re happy to report that this inventive spirit continues to burn bright. One of the latest examples is the international company based right here in Odessa that is bucking current economic trends by thriving in a depressed petroleum market.

Absolute Filtration Industries Corp. has increased revenue from $1 million to $10 million in the past year. And the secret to that success is walnut shells. Company CEO Jerry Hensley said his operation is one of four businesses in the world that use walnut shells in filtering devices to clean water used in oilfield water floods and other disposal situations.

The units save time over traditional sand-based filters, plus they allow drillers to save oil that may otherwise have been lost, Absolute Filtration sales manager Jim Patterson said.

Hensley started Absolute Filtration in 1989, but was in the nutshell filter business for years before that. He developed, along with his brother, nutshell filters. Then he sold the patents to what are now his company’s much larger competitors — Germany-based Siemens AG, Veolia Environment SA of France and Cameron International Corp. of Houston.

But he pointed out that his six-person company has an advantage over the larger corporations. “We figured a cheaper way to do it, a more economical way to do it,” Hensley said. “One where you solve a problem that they have.”

The reason for the dramatic increase in revenue lies with Petrobras SA, the largest company in Latin America. The company recently placed a $10 million order with Absolute Filtration to supply the Brazilian energy giant with nine of its largest 15-foot-diameter Hydroflow units. Patterson said the units are almost 30-feet tall and have 50,000 pounds of walnut shells inside.

Although Absolute has done business everywhere from Indiana to Azerbaijan, Hensley said the Petrobras contract “has kind of moved us into a lot bigger league.”

What’s more, this inventive process is paying off for other Permian Basin businesses. Absolute Filtration brings in other companies to build its vessels. Hensley said this benefits a number of local companies, including Odessa Pumps, which he just placed a $1 million order with.

Odessa Pumps President Toby Eoff said the Absolute Filtration order would be the largest his company gets this year. In tough economic times, that can be very helpful.

And so we have yet another example of a corporation that quietly carved out a profitable niche in global business while operating with reasonable obscurity out of the Permian Basin.

 Even in troubled financial times, the spirit of innovation and inventiveness lives on. That is assuring.