Unconventional resource developers are fine-tuning surfactant chemical cocktails in an effort to improve well productivity and ultimate recoveries from both new and existing wells, with different degrees of success, executives said on year-end earnings calls.

Chevron Corporation has seen success using surfactants on its Permian wells and is now expanding pilots across unconventional basins, said chief executive officer Mike Wirth.

“We’ve been primarily focused on Permian, and in fact, we’ve increased the treatments from about 40 per cent of the new wells being treated at the first half of 2025 to almost 85 per cent will be treated this year, and we’re striving to hit 100 per cent in 2027,” Wirth said.

“We’re testing our proprietary chemical technology, but we’re also testing the combination of that with other commercially available chemicals. So, cocktails as such. We’re trying out different things depending on the development area.”

Early results have shown a 20 per cent improvement in 10-month cumulative recovery on the new wells, Wirth said.

“We expect that’s at least a 10 per cent recovery uplift, when we think about it over the full life of the well.”

“What we’ve also learned is we can apply these technologies not only to the new wells, but to existing wells. And what we’ve seen in almost 300 of the treatments that we’ve done in existing wells is that we’ve arrested decline by five to eight per cent.”

The company ran some tests in the Bakken using surfactants in the fourth quarter, he said.

“We have pilots underway in the DJ and Argentina as well.”

“We anticipate we’ll have some results for you this year, but right now, we’re just focused on getting the treatments out to those other shale and tight basins.”

Diamondback Energy Inc. is in earlier stages of using surfactants, said chief executive officer Kaes Van’t Hof.

The company completed a 60-well test in the second half of 2025, he said.

“This went from an idea in June to execution by December, and we’ve got a lot of data coming in from those tests. We’re focused on the production side for now, so that we can try to figure out which variables are working.”

Diamondback is also looking at adding surfactants to its completions, he added.

“I think we’re going to test that, but we’re also going to continue to test the production side of the business.

Diamondback is continuing to test different formulations, said executive vice-president and chief engineer Al Barkmann.

“A lot of lab work and technical work is going into designing the surfactant for the specific rock types and the specific surfactant types that we’re using,” Barkmann said.

“It’s pretty early on in the results, but we’ve seen at least in a handful of the DSUs that we’ve applied this to some really exciting results. The team is taking that information and going back, refining the chemical makeup and the design of the test, and really trying to hone in on the variables that are driving the performance for the program.”

The application of surfactants across the Permian has taken off quickly, said Van’t Hof.

“From a high-level perspective this was something that no one talked about outside of SPE papers four or five years ago, and now it’s becoming something that can potentially be economic.”

“This is all just gravy. This is all added production, added reserves, to something that we didn’t think was possible a few years ago.”

Ovintiv Inc. has pumped surfactants into 300 wells in the Permian since 2019, and is seeing a nine per cent improvement in overall well productivity, said chief operating officer Greg Givens.

“We’ve been working for a number of years on this, both in the lab and in the field. We’ve done core testing in the lab as well as field trials to try to determine which surfactants work best in which zones.”

“We’ve been working to optimize the concentrations that we pump, the amount of surfactant per ratio of fluid, both to optimize the effectiveness but also optimize the cost of these surfactants.”

The high cost of surfactants has been a limiting factor in using them in unconventional plays, said president and chief executive officer Brendan McCracken.

“When we first started this work several years ago, there was some really expensive chemistry out there that was a real barrier to pumping it more broadly just because of the risk/reward feature.”

“What our lab work has really let us do is trial hundreds and hundreds of different chemistries, which allows us to then create substitutes that have now kind of almost completely displaced some of those original chemistries that were in the market several years ago.”

Substituting cheaper alternatives, combined with pumping less surfactant, has cut costs, said McCracken. But he was unwilling to put a specific price tag on the treatments for competitive reasons.

While Ovintiv has seen strong results on the completions front, it hasn’t seen the same effectiveness adding surfactants to existing wells, said Givens.

“But the team continues to experiment with this and will continue going forward. We do believe it’s a very effective way to improve recovery in the near and long term from these wells.”

With its success in the Permian, Ovintiv is now in the very early stages of testing surfactants in the Montney, he added.

“We’ve done some of the rock work and we’ve done a few trials so far. I would position it more we’re just getting started up there.”

“And it will be a slightly different setup just because of the pressure regime downhole and the rock fabric. It’s just a different reservoir. But we’re working to see if we can make the same kind of improvements there.”

Exxon Mobil Corporation is also using surfactants to get more out of wells, executive vice-president Neil Chapman said at its corporate update.

“You have to improve how the molecules flow. These are very, very small fractures, very, very small channels, maybe the diametre of a grain of sand. Oil is very sticky, so you have to increase the fluidity of the molecules and that’s why in our technology program we do things like inject the surfactants to improve that.”

But the company has no plans on sharing information on its surfactant program, he added.

“Industry will use surfactants. That’s not unusual. Those surfactants are readily available from service providers.”

“But we have one of the largest chemical organizations in the world. We’re one of the largest solvents intermediate organizations in the world. So, we’re tailoring those solvents depending on the development that we are moving into. How we’re using those solvents in that application, that’s proprietary.”