New Houston-area frack water company formed

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Mission WEST aims to solve water problems in hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

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Jordan Blum

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Los Angeles-based Clearlake Capital Group LP private equity firm has teamed up with a former Swire Oilfield Services president, Steve Hardwick, to form a new water solutions company for oil and gas shale production.

The new Mission WEST Inc. — WEST stands for water-engineered solutions and technologies — is based out of The Woodlands with Hardwick as the new CEO.

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Hardwick said the goal of the company is to comprehensively tackle the water issues that energy companies face with hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which uses up a lot of water. Mission WEST will focus on water recycling, storage, transportation and more, he said.

"It (water usage) is something we should handle with care," Hardwick said, noting that water is becoming a more valuable and scarce resource. "There's a real need to manage it in a responsible way."

Hardwick previously led the Swire Water Systems operations in Houston. He said Mission WEST has launched with just a small team of six people but is quickly looking to soon hire more engineers, designers, water treatment experts and more.

"We've got significant growth planned," Hardwick said.

However, he declined to delve into specifics of that planned growth.

He and Clearlake Capital also are not revealing how much money is being pumped into the new company.

Hardwick said that the water solutions sector in energy has been "highly fragmented" in its infancy and that Mission WEST aims to solve all of a company's water issues and concerns.

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Jordan Blum covers energy for the Houston Business Journal. Read the top Texas energy news in our free weekly newsletter, Energy Inc. Click here to subscribe to the Energy Inc. newsletter.