Breakthrough Engenuity LLC

Breakthrough Engenuity LLC began as "High-Tech Consultants" (HTC) in 1992 to introduce its newly patented HWSB® Skim Tank technology to the industry. By 2015, over thirty-five hundred HWSB®s were in service, capturing heretofore lost oil, and HTC had added seventeen more patents as it transitioned to Breakthrough Engenuity LLC. FYI, "Engenuity" is the combination of "engineering" and "ingenious," an acronym we created to describe our focus on ingenuity and innovation.

Our industry has embraced ingenuity since 1859, when Edwin Drake drilled the world's very first oil well. His ingenious use of a tapered rod of solid iron to break through bedrock brought in the world's first oil well. In the years that followed, over 90% of all new oil wells were failures, or "dry holes," but innovation prevailed! A new seismic technology named "Thumper" improved the odds of successfully finding oil from a meager 10% to over 80%. Then, new rotary rigs began replacing slower spudder rigs, reducing drilling costs and times. And Howard Hughes' innovative tri-cone drill a bit reduced drilling times even more, from months to weeks.

For decades, all oil wells were drilled vertically. Then, fourteen decades later, innovation prevailed again as wells were drilled vertically down to the top of the oil layer and then turned and drilled horizontally into the thick oil-rich layer below. These wells produced far more oil and started the "shale oil boom".

As the shale oil boom continued, it became clear that the design of commonly used oilfield equipment lagged. Most process equipment and facility designs had been standardized in the years before the Arab Oil Embargo (1972-1985), so as increasing shale oil volumes overwhelmed those older systems, Breakthrough Engenuity LLC's 21st-century designs became popular and more widely used! In the years between 2006 and 2015, we custom-designed over three hundred new saltwater disposal plants built to accommodate the growing volumes of produced water as the new shale oil boom volumes increased. We also introduced our more efficient separator and treater designs and our first CTB plug-n-play systems.

By 2012, the USA was once again energy independent, and vertical well completions were almost a thing of the past! Long-lateral horizontal completions with multi-stage frac jobs were the order of the day. New wells produced ten to twenty times more oil and gas than earlier vertical wells. This was the industry's ultimate game-changer!

The increase in new well production rates, coupled with higher oil prices, prompted oil producers to focus more on uptime, keeping wells producing 24/7/365. Downtime became operators’ biggest expense, and their economic focus changed. Maintaining operational uptime became far more important than the cost of equipment. For the first time in history, producers were willing to pay more for better, more efficient production process equipment and system designs to minimize their downtime, and they learned that Breakthrough Engenuity LLC's designs met those needs.

Today, most oil companies focus on using equipment and facility designs proven to eliminate downtime ... Breakthrough Engenuity LLC's entire focus! Our innovations are now embraced by the industry worldwide. Companies like Exxon, BP, Shell, Devon Energy, Petro Hunt, and many others depend on our technologies every day for separators that separate more, treaters that treat more, VRTs that manage crude oil vapor pressure, HWSB®s that capture more remnant oil, and our "Signature Plug-N-Play" CTB (central tank battery) designs. Every one of these maximizes oil sales and water quality with 1) four-phase metering separators with automated sand removal, 2) cone-bottom sand/water separation tanks, 3) ultra-efficient heater treaters, 4) DFSD® de-sanding tanks, 5) HWSB® Skim Tanks, and 6) industry's first plug-n-play designs that optimize operations with key components that are swapped out in a matter of minutes as production rates decline. The swapped-out units are then relocated to a newer, more prolific facility, eliminating the need to devote CAPEX once used to purchase more new equipment.

Breakthrough Engenuity LLC was founded to improve your profits using innovation. Over the years, many of our twenty-three patents have become "industry standards". The very first one, the "HWSB®" skim tank, has changed the industry. Each one captures enough crude oil (oil once injected into disposal wells to be lost forever) to pay for itself in less than a month. There are over 5,000 HWSB® skim tanks processing over seventy-five million barrels of water every day.

Now, wherever you look, you will find Breakthrough Engenuity LLC's patents in production facilities (CTBs) and saltwater disposal (SWD) plants alike... a testimonial to innovations benefiting all oil and gas operations. The name “Breakthrough Engenuity LLC” says it all. It is where breakthrough concepts and ingenious ideas come together to create original, innovative, and amazing results for you.​

​KBK Industries now owns many of our patents and promotes their use throughout the oil and gas industry. And Breakthrough Engenuity LLC continues to provide engineering and design services to the industry wherever and whenever needed.