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The humble guar bean of the Indian sub-continent is creating havoc with the booming hydraulic fracturing (fracking) market of North America.
Rocketing costs and shortages of guar gum are eroding the profit margins of leading fracking companies as well as influencing proppant material selection.
In the fracking process, guar gum is a key ingredient in the viscous fluids used to transport the fracking proppant, ie. frac sand or ceramic proppants such as calcined bauxite.
Guar gum is a polysaccharide derived from tissue of the guar bean. Its key property is as a thickener - guar gum has almost eight times the water-thickening potency of cornstarch.
The oil and gas drilling industry is experiencing severe guar gum shortages caused by substantially lower guar bean production in India and Pakistan which together account for >96% of world supply (India, 70%).
Experiencing high demand, mainly from the oil and gas industry, and particularly from fracking requirements, combined with a 20% drop in guar gum production, the price of guar gum has increased more than 500% in the past 15 months.
One report had Indian guar gum export prices having...