Victory Nickel Inc. announced that a resource estimate of approximately 11 million tons of sand has been completed by Summit Envirosolutions Inc. on the company’s Bear Coulee frac sand property and will be incorporated into a National Instrument 43-101 technical report. The Bear Coulee frac sand property is located in Trempeleau County, Wis., and was optioned by Victory Nickel in the fourth quarter of 2014.
The Bear Coulee land package under option totals more than 300 acres in southwestern Wisconsin; the currently defined Indicated resource contains 10.9 million tons of sand from the Wonewoc Formation sandstone, a common source rock for proppant sand from the region ¬– 43 percent of the sand will report to the 20/40 size fraction and 42 percent will report to the 40/140 size fraction.
Based on the depositional model of the Wonewoc Formation, Summit interprets a largely uniform quality of the frac sand within the confines of the property. The size distribution of the sand particles that have been sampled is consistent across the area of the property, further indicating a homogeneous resource. Potential for enhancement to the sand resource on the property exists with additional evaluation and drilling.
In addition, the very prospective Jordan Formation sandstone is identified on the Wisconsin bedrock geology map to underlie part the property – it has not been evaluated yet and, as elsewhere in the region, may provide an additional source of frac sand.
“This estimate confirms the presence of a substantial NI 43-101 sand resource on the Bear Coulee property,” said Ken Murdock, CEO of 100 percent-owned subsidiary Victory Silica Ltd. “Achieving security of supply of the Northern White frac sand for our customers has always been a priority and this transaction is yet another example of the company enhancing its supply chain to facilitate its ability to deliver the highest quality frac sand product to its customers in a timely manner.”