DuraTech Processes has been called the best-kept secret in the oil patch. We provide a coating that is one of the most visible and successful products in the industry and referred to by operators, engineers, roughnecks, service providers, consultants and almost everyone else in the field as NiCarb or Ni-Carb.

NiCarb = Ni-Carb = Durabide®

Unfortunately, our product is so well known as NiCarb that the name that is actually trademarked (Durabide®) and the company behind all of it (DuraTech Processes) have been obscured.

Whatever name you know us by, our NiCarb-coated barrels are the premier pump barrels in oilfields across North America and around the world. Sold by leading rod lift manufacturers as NiCarb coating or Ni-Carb coating, our Durabide® product has been the gold standard in downhole pumps since the 70’s.  DuraTech’s exacting standards for chemistry and plating are unrivaled and have made NiCarb one of the best known and most reliable products in the industry.

Imagine a 40’ long tube that measures only 1 ½” in diameter. Now think about how you would deposit an ultra-thin coating (thickness of a human hair) evenly throughout the inside of that tube.  That is what we do every day.  We did not start at 40’…we started with much shorter tubes in the late 1970’s and we still plate plenty of 12’ and 16’ tubes today.  But over time we evolved as the needs of our customers evolved.  We learned through experience, we pushed our limits, we experimented with a variety of techniques, and as our customers’ barrels grew longer we developed our proprietary methods to plate barrels up to 40’ in length.  Today the market for 40’ NiCarb tubes is highly active and we are told that we are the only ones who can consistently and reliably coat these large format parts.

Our core product Durabide® , known to you as NiCarb, is a composite coating containing silicon carbide particles within an electroless nickel matrix.  In making-up our coating we carefully control the volume fraction of silicon carbide and ensure a homogenous dispersion of particles. In layman’s terms this means that the composite material is consistent and spread evenly throughout the nickel base, a challenging task given the ultra-light weight and jagged-shapes of silicon particles.  Silicon is not our only composite element: we also work with diamond, boron and many other composite materials in order to bring the best solutions to our customers.

To borrow from an old tag-line: we won’t make your product but we will make your product better.