One such stock is Newpark Resources ( NR), a Texas-based provider of drilling fluids, temporary worksites and access roads for oil and gas drillers.

FORBES: Gulf Oil Spill Boosts Onshore Driller

Faulty blowout preventers, errors in the management of drilling fluids, a sub-par cementing job, questionable well design, haste it was a confluence of these factors that led to the blowout.

FORBES: Offshore Oil Czar Bromwich Falls Flat With Op-Ed Defending Permit Delays

What is required is to make sure that the drilling fluids and frack wastewater do not come in contact with the fresh water aquifers when the wells are being drilled, completed, or produced.

FORBES: U.S. Energy Independence - So Close, Yet So Far

After plaintiffs' attorneys rested their case Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier ruled there was no evidence that BP's drilling fluids contractor M-I LLC made any decision that led to the blowout of BP's Macondo well.

NPR: Claims Against BP Contractors Dismissed At Trial

Once seen as badly trailing its competitors in areas such as directional drilling and drilling fluids, Halliburton now has everything it needs to win contracts for projects such as designing, building and operating systems to manage production from oilfields.

FORBES: Mr. Outside saves the day

But XTO, with a smaller capital structure than the supermajors', is happy to invest in the neglected fields, using new techniques of 3-D imaging, horizontal drilling and so-called fracture stimulation--blowing open rock formations by injecting mudlike fluids down wells to get at big methane reservoirs.

FORBES: Oil & Gas Operations

Some scientists have proposed adding chemical tracers to fracking fluids as a way of confirming that any contamination of drinking water comes from the drilling process.

BBC: Fracking: Untangling fact from fiction