
n June 2020, ChampionX Corp. completed the merger of the businesses of Apergy Corp. and ChampionX Holding Inc., the former upstream energy business of Nalco Champion. Apergy then changed its name to ChampionX Corp. Now ChampionX has a team of nearly 7,000 people globally, and the company offers chemical, artificial lift, drilling and digital technologies for the reservoir, production, midstream and water treatment markets.
“The creation of ChampionX through the merger of Apergy and the Nalco Champion upstream chemicals business has been transformative and a complementary combination in strategic, operational and financial dimensions,” President and CEO Soma Somasundaram told E&P Plus. “Our combination created a global leader in production optimization and an essential player in the oil and gas market with a strong portfolio, global customer base and footprint, and strong financial profile.”
Somasundaram said the company’s strategy moving forward involves five strategic elements: “realizing the synergies we have laid out, accelerating our digital and digitally enabled revenue streams, leveraging our enhanced global footprint to increase our international sales, building our continuous improvement culture, and evolving our portfolio for sustained growth as the world undergoes an energy transition.”
In this exclusive interview with E&P Plus, Somasundaram shares details about how the company battled through 2020, its ESG efforts, digital technologies and current R&D projects.
Our teams adapted quickly to the virtual working environment amidst the global pandemic and worked diligently to complete the planned merger.
With COVID-19, we recognized risks early and quickly implemented protections for our site-essential and field personnel as well as remote-working protocols for others. Our Crisis Management Team managed our safety and health protocols and stepped up communication to employees.
We executed our downturn playbook, taking early action as the market changed. We know that responding quickly to industry cycles is important to protect short-term capability and be ready for the recovery. Like many companies, we focused on managing cash flow and expenses to weather the downturn, while preserving our core capabilities.
Coming together as ChampionX gave us a tremendous advantage, because it helped us take our 130 years of experience in the market and reposition what we do to meet the needs of the industry as it changed dramatically.

Our R&D priorities are focused on solving customer problems, improving their productivity and helping them safely produce oil and gas more sustainably. This means developing innovative chemistries, advanced materials and coatings, smart equipment, advanced digital solutions and thoughtful integration of digital and physical assets.
One recent example is the collaboration agreement we announced in November [2020] with Modumetal to introduce our Norris Rod couplings coated with nanolaminate technology to improve equipment reliability and lower customer operating expenses.
We’ve had other recent game-changing advancements, like our Excelceor chemical technology that adds water-soluble polymers to increase viscosity in injection water during the waterflooding process to improve sweep efficiency. We’re now deploying that in onshore and offshore production.
Our innovation philosophy isn’t limited to new molecules or equipment; it’s also about continuously improving our operations to deliver superior outcomes to all our stakeholders. This involves digitizing our critical work processes to eliminate waste and improve customer and employee experiences.
