With a mission to significantly reduce landfill material (mainly via the diversion of scrap tires); drastically cut emissions, water and energy usage; and create local jobs in an emerging industry, Bolder's goals are, well, bold.
The company splits its net sales evenly between BolderOil and Bolder Black.
"The oil side has been very interesting recently," Wibbeler said. "We have opened up a lot of markets on that side—some pretty big markets—with some pretty good diversification."
One of the biggest markets in the U.S. is Bolder's collaboration with virgin carbon black producers like Tokai Carbon Co. Ltd., to provide ISCC-certified CB oil to make virgin CB.
If this sounds like Bolder is selling its rCB to its vCB competitors, Wibbeler is quick to note that's not the case.
"Years ago people told me I was crazy to do this ... but it turned out pretty well," he said. "Other people might see it that way (as competition) ... I do not.
"I look at it as we are built from the same cloth. In the 1950s and 1960s they were taking waste oil products and turning it into other products.
"We are doing something very similar, just as they did with fossil fuels."
Since the rCB that Bolder produces and the vCB that legacy CB companies manufacture are not one-for-one replacements (at least typically), legacy companies can use Bolder's material as a performance additive, boosting the properties of the vCB with a mix of both.
"If you can blend rCB and vCB ... they now have allocations for new volumes they would not have had before," Wibbeler said. "They are terming that 'sustainable virgin black.' "
Bolder does sell its BolderBlack and BolderOil directly to customers as well as a plug-and-play, though the materials more often are mixed in both cases.
"There is a reason there are more than 40 grades of ASTM black and thousands of specialty grades. Our's is one of those," Wibbeler said.
On average, Bolder Industries has about a 30-percent replacement rate with its customers in their vCBs.
"Sometimes people take it easy and they start at a 10-percent blend rate and then move up from there," Wibbeler said.
BolderOil is a bit different in that the oil itself is feedstock for vCB production, though it, also, is often mixed.
Bolder has two condensed cuts of oil that can be blended back together. The company does not use a distillation tower.
"BolderOil provides some uniqueness," Wibbeler said. "It requires less heating and there are cleaning agents inherently in it that can assist with some applications. We are very complementary to these businesses in many ways."
One of those applications is in the solvents market, with fracking well clean-up efforts for paraffin wax, and asphaltene mitigation.