Ok, you may be right. I was involved in applications development in the carbon black industry ( used to reinforce rubber, such as in tires), and our products had to perform all the way through shipping, dispersing into the rubber, how it handled during plant processing, and finally how it performed in tires( requirements included treadwear, traction, tear resistance, etc.). The physical properties affected all these features, and each product had to meet stringent specs. before proceeding to trials. This may be a fairly extreme case of chemical requirements, but I can't imagine a new source for Barite or frack sand not being required to handle properly in the fracking system before ordering multiple shipments from a new supplier.
