The oil industry’s clean little secret.

Shh. We got rid of make down.

Make-down is the black hole of the energy industry, sapping profits from operators who find themselves reliant on outmoded equipment, chemicals, and process to treat wastewater.

Why it matters: Make-down relies on vast quantities of freshwater to mix polyacrylamide (PAM), an old chemical that requires constant babysitting and hits the bottom line several times over:

1. The chemical itself is expensive given the volumes required
2. CAPEX to manage equipment purchases, upgrades, and maintenance
3. OPEX hits from crews having to babysit rigs, constantly oversee dosing, and non-productive time (NPT) and site shutdowns when bad flocs gum up the equipment
4. Regulatory burdens from overdosing and permit breaches
5. Freshwater fees and trucking charges for make-down water
   

CarboNet chemistry was built out of these challenges, creating an opportunity for energy operators to ditch make-down and lower their CAPEX, OPEX, and emissions:

• Chemical spend: CarboNet flocculants alter the throughput of water treatment, reducing cost-to-treat by up to 50%.
• OPEX: CarboNet chemistry requires no make-down and dramatically reduces time spent on dosing calibration and monitoring—or NPT when calibration or monitoring snafus lead to centrifuge flushes, shredded belts, cemented polishers, or other equipment malfunctions.
• CAPEX: CarboNet flocculants don’t require make-down equipment and often improve the performance of other tools in the pipeline, helping maintain existing CAPEX or avoid new investments entirely.
• Toxicity: CarboNet’s NanoNet platform reduces PAM by up to 90%, helping hit increasingly stringent regulatory targets.
• Emissions: CarboNet’s chemistry reduces Scope 3 Emissions up to 70%. To date, the commodity chemicals we’ve displaced has cut 300 million tonnes of CO₂ production.
• Health & safety: CarboNet products arrive pre-activated and plug-and-play, removing the need for makedown and crew exposure to toxic inhalants, spills, slips, and other machine interactions.
• Regulatory exposure: Broadly, CarboNet chemistry slashes emissions and improves performance KPIs related to zero discharge or permit targets.
  

Behind-the-scenes: CarboNet scientists and field technicians are focused on products for a new reality: a world with less water and more regulations—but persistent demands of customers and shareholders.

• Keep in mind: Water insecurity (droughts and floods) is changing regulations, permits, and emission limits. Commodity chemicals—created 70 years ago and rapidly aging out—hit you where it hurts: the balance sheet.
  

The bottom line: If chemistry teaches us anything, it’s that small things can make a big impact. From upstream to downstream—anywhere energy production creates wastewater—removing make-down creates substantial savings from lowered CAPEX and more efficient OPEX.

“Within two hours of introducing CarboNet’s solution into the system, not only did the tanks start to clean up, with contaminants breaking loose from the walls, we were suddenly seeing stronger floc and our volumes went up to 85,000 barrels of water a day.“

Dave Williams, O&G Operator