Is ExxonMobil’s Proprietary Proppant a One-Off Advantage, or Can the Rest of the Unconventional Sector Follow?

It’s been about a year since ExxonMobil revealed that it was using an enhanced version of petroleum coke (petcoke) as a lightweight proppant additive in the Permian Basin. ExxonMobil reports between 7 and 20% uplift in crude production from wells treated with petcoke proppant compared with baseline offsets, and outside analyses support the claims. Though the reported results have been undeniably positive, the impact that this technological development will have on the direction of the wider unconventional business is far from certain. What the Houston-area-based oil company has made clear is that it believes reaching the next rung of tight-oil recovery is unlikely to come from pumping standard in-basin sand alone. Some in the completions engineering space have been making a similar case for more than a decade, and there’s no shortage of case studies on either lightweight proppant (i.e., lighter than sand) or microproppant (i.e., smaller than sand) deployments to be found in industry literature. But the argument now carries the weight of an endorsement from the largest operator in the Permian—and this has not gone unnoticed among the companies developing competing technologies. Among those pleased to hear of ExxonMobil’s success is Terry Palisch, chief technology officer of specialty proppant supplier Carbo Ceramics and the 2024 SPE President. “ExxonMobil has elevated this discussion from a few companies and a few experts to the front and center,” he said. “They have shown that by putting lower-density material in their fractures, they can reportedly prop open areas that have not been propped before.” Carl Montgomery is another long-time completions expert who has been promoting the use of lightweight microproppants for many years. For most of that time, however, the industry has been reticent to invest in the additives because of their premium pricing. “It’s been a very hard sell,” said Montgomery, the CEO of the completions-focused consultancy Fracdog. “But this work that ExxonMobil has done with petroleum coke, it’s kind of changed that and we’re getting a lot more calls because people are more interested in it.” ExxonMobil first disclosed the proprietary proppant, an upgraded variety of petcoke made at its North American refineries, in late 2024. Interest grew further during the 2025 Unconventional Resources Technology Conference (URTeC) in Houston, where ExxonMobil engineers outlined the material’s superior transport properties. According to URTeC 4264319, the lightweight petcoke reaches deeper into fracture networks than in-basin sand and increases propped area by 20 to 40%. ExxonMobil issued another update on 31 October during its third-quarter earnings call, noting that it has used the material in about a quarter of its wells over the past year and expects to treat half of its new wells with it in 2026. The scale of ExxonMobil’s plans, and the expectations around them, have caused some to scrutinize public data to verify the results. This includes analysts at Wood Mackenzie, whose recent report on the matter was highlighted by ExxonMobil during its October call.