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PA-Based Frac Sand Company Expands Presence in Ohio Utica in 3Q
We first told you about a frac sand company called Smart Sand some 13 years ago (see Smart Sand Lands Big Name for Board of Directors). Smart Sand, headquartered in Yardley, PA, is a supplier of industrial sand, primarily serving customers in the oil and gas industry, including drillers in the Marcellus and Utica Shale region. Sand—the right kind of sand, which is crystalline—is a critical part of the hydraulic fracturing process. The company issued its third quarter update recently. The company said it further expanded its presence in the Utica shale through company-owned Ohio terminals in 3Q. Read More “PA-Based Frac Sand Company Expands Presence in Ohio Utica in 3Q”
Here’s a neat company we haven’t written about in 4 1/2 years: 
We first told you about a frac sand company called Smart Sand some 13 years ago (see 
Iron Oak Energy is a proppant and solutions provider with over 34 million tons of annual production capacity (i.e., a big frac sand company). Iron Oak’s assets include leading positions in the largest U.S. shale plays and strategically located terminals to distribute sand to the company’s customers. Yesterday, Iron Oak announced a deal to buy the Northern White assets of HC Minerals, Inc. The assets include a frac sand plant in Wyeville, Wisconsin, and four terminals in the Marcellus and Utica shales to distribute the sand. 
Today, we introduce you to a new advertiser on Marcellus Drilling News: 
Smart Sand is a fully integrated frac and industrial sand supply and services company, offering complete mine to wellsite proppant and logistics solutions to frac sand customers and a broad offering of products for industrial sand customers. The company produces low-cost, high quality Northern White sand, a premium sand used as a proppant to enhance hydrocarbon recovery rates in the hydraulic fracturing of oil and natural gas wells. The company’s main markets are the Bakken and Marcellus. However, the company is increasingly supplying sand to Ohio Utica drillers. 
ProFrac Holding Corp. is an oilfield service company (OFS) providing well-stimulation services, proppants production, and other complementary products and services to oil and gas companies engaged in the exploration and production (E&P) of unconventional oil and natural gas resources throughout the United States. In other words, ProFrac is a fracker-for-hire. The company has its own subsidiary to provide frac sand called Alpine Silica Holding, LLC. Yesterday, ProFrac, a public company, announced its plans to spin the Alpine subsidiary into its own public company with an initial public offering (IPO).
We can’t resist a good railroad story. The American Shortline and Regional Railroad Association (ASLRRA) has just recognized the 
We can’t resist a good railroad story. We’ve always loved them (we know, we’re weird). Here’s a good railroad story for you: Frack sand company Smart Sand, Inc., headquartered in The Woodlands, Texas, has just opened for business and is shipping frack sand to a brand new transloading facility in Waynesburg (Greene County), Pennsylvania.
Sand is big business. Just ask U.S. Silica, the largest proppant/sand provider for the oil and gas industry. Sand, as you may know, is used in fracking new shale wells. LOTs of sand is used. Sand (and alternatives like synthetic beads) is called “proppant” because it’s mixed with water, blasted into cracks in shale rock, and when the water returns to the surface the sand remains behind in the cracks and “props open” the tiny cracks to allow oil and gas to escape. The biggest such sand company in the country, U.S. Silica, announced yesterday that it is exploring separating the company’s non-oil & gas division into a separate company and selling it.
We spotted an interesting article on the Forbes website about microproppants–really really tiny particles of sand or ceramic beads–and how the smaller the size of the proppant, the more likely it is to keep cracks in shale rock open and flowing natural gas and oil. In the Utica Shale, for example, a special kind of microproppant called DEEPROP will yield an additional revenue of $315,000 – $585,000 per thousand feet drilled. Show me the money!
In February Chesapeake Energy finally emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy shedding $7.8 billion worth of debt (see 
In July MDN told you that frac sand company Hi-Crush, which has customers in the Marcellus/Utica, had filed for bankruptcy (see 
Looks like top management at Chesapeake Energy getting millions in bonuses just before declaring bankruptcy isn’t the only company to engage in this disgusting practice (see