This Week’s Market Buzz

  • The Wabasha, Wis., city council voted to extend its frac sand moratorium for another year in order to get more complete information on air quality, truck traffic and environmental concerns, according to the Winona Daily News. Although the frac sand moratorium was extended, a moratorium on truck traffic was not. The council at the same meeting allowed that moratorium to end. It had previously halted companies with significant truck traffic from expanding to more than 500 regular trips a day or more than 30 “heavy truck” trips.
  • U.S. Silica settled an operating agreement to manage a 1.5 million tpy frac sand operation now being developed in Waltham Township, Ill. Quality Sand Products of Peru, Ill., opened the site early last year. The city of La Salle approved the mine in February 2013. Under the city’s agreement, it will collect 15 cents for every ton of sand mined with a 2 percent annual increase. Production of frac sand is expected to commence until this summer and the plant should eventually employ 15 to 30 people.
  • Claim Post Resources Inc. said that it has retained SGS Mineral Services of Lakefield, Ontario, Canada, to do bench scale test work for its Seymourville silica sand deposit. The high-grade silica sand deposit is located northeast of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, on the eastern shore of Lake Winnipeg. As part of the Claim Post plan to advance the Seymourville frac sand project to production, a 1,000-kg sample of sand from 20 individual sonic drill holes was delivered to the SGS Lab from secure storage in Winnipeg. The sand will be composited with 25 percent stored at Lakefield, 25 percent returned to Winnipeg, and 50 percent metallurgical tested and ultimately processed into 1-kg samples for test marketing to oil and natural gas companies, according to the company.

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