Flotek should be familiar to readers of this blog.
In plain english Flotek makes a chemical mix which makes sand-water mixes slippery so you can get more sand into fractures when you fracture an oil and gas reservoir. Their chemical mix is a surfactant.
There are many suppliers of surfactants. The product is a commodity.
However Flotek sell their product as somehow special. The claim: their surfactant is a "complex nano-fluid", but it is really a mix of d-limonene (the oil from orange peel) and isopropyl alcohol.
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This blog once showed that data Flotek provided for pitching their complex nano-fluid was either (a) made up or (b) did not support the idea that their fluid was particularly effective.
We were right. Flotek put out a press release effectively admitting all of our allegations.
In other words their key claims were BS.
At the time Flotek claimed they had a software sales tool (that ran on an iPad) called FracMax which was critical to demonstrating their fluid effective - but we could not find a working copy of FracMax and could not find anyone who had ever seen one.
This was problematic. Flotek told the market that FracMax was their main selling tool.
Whatever FracMax has disappeared from Flotek's literature.
So their main selling tool was also BS.
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All this should have been the death-knell for the stock. But it wasn't. Sure the stock is lower but not much (given the decline in oil and gas volumes) and somehow people still believe the "complex nano-fluid" story. I have never met a serious Flotek owner - so the stock price remains a mystery to me.
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Today FourWorld Capital Management (an outfit I had never heard of) put out an updated and more thorough analysis of Flotek.
Its darn good - so go read it.
Why this stock trades above pennies I do not understand.
It will trade at pennies one day. I remain short.
John Hempton
A tincture of d-limonene in isopropyl isn't a surfactant
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surfactant#Classification_of_surfactants
It sounds like this stuff works as a wetting agent, in order to maximise the volume of sand that is jammed into the cracks under pressure
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wetting
Tincture of d-limonene: It smells nice. You can even use it as a furniture polish [AKA 'Pledge']
I can't believe more people aren't talking about this. I've been fracking for 5 years, I've used their product and have first hand experience it doesn't perform. It didn't take us long to discontinue it's use. Haha, I'm seriously surpised that the latest exposing report has yet to effect FTK. I agree with Bronte, this stock is a ticking time-bbmb. I'm surprised they've made it this far.
ReplyDeleteEver take a look at Wins Finance (WINS on US NASDAQ)? Something weird going on there.
ReplyDeleteWhat can we expect when FTK reports next week????
ReplyDeleteWhat can we expect when FTK reports next week????
ReplyDeleteJohn, wondering whether you had any thoughts on the class action being dismissed?
ReplyDelete