Victory Nickel Inc. announced very positive analytical results from sand samples obtained from drill holes on the Bear Coulee frac sand property located in Trempeleau County, Wis. Testing shows that the 10.9-million-ton NI 43-101 Northern White frac sand resource exceeds American Petroleum Institute (API) specs and that, on average, an exceptional 43 percent of the resource will report to the 20/40 size fraction. Northern White sand is highly valued as a proppant in the oil and gas markets.
“Victory Nickel’s strategy is to be the premier supplier of superior domestic Canadian and US Northern White frac sand. As expected, sand from the Bear Coulee property fits the bill,” said Ken Murdock, CEO of frac sand subsidiary Victory Silica Ltd. “Victory Nickel now has Indicated NI 43-101 frac sand resources totaling 12.6 million tons of high-quality domestic frac sand at its Minago property in Manitoba and 10.9 million tons of premium Northern White sand at Bear Coulee, giving the company the most comprehensive suite of frac sand resources of any Canadian publicly-traded supplier. These resources are in addition to the frac sand that we have been selling into the Canadian and Northern U.S. markets since mid-2014.”
The Bear Coulee land package under option totals more than 300 acres in southwestern Wisconsin. Based on the depositional model of the Wonewoc Formation, Summit Envirosolutions 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 expansion of the sand resource on the property exists with additional evaluation and drilling. The very prospective Jordan Formation sandstone is identified on the Wisconsin bedrock geology map to underlie part the property ¬– it has not yet been evaluated and, as elsewhere in the region, may provide an additional source of high-quality proppant sand.
The analytical results for roundness, sphericity, turbidity and crush resistance from four samples collected from the first four boreholes drilled on the property are tabulated below. These initial results obtained from the Bear Coulee Northern White sand exceed the minimum ISO 13503-2/API RP19C requirements.
The analyses were conducted at FracTAL Laboratory in Minneapolis, Minn., for distinct quality parameters in general accordance with the standards of the ISO 13503-2/API RP19C specification, except that a Camsizer was used for grain size distribution analysis. The following tests were performed: gradations using Camsizer, Krumbein shapes (roundness and sphericity), turbidity, bulk density and crush strength.
John Dustman, P.G., of Summit Envirosolutions, registered with the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of the State of Minnesota, is responsible for the analytical results.
The company also announced that Alison Sutcliffe has resigned as chief financial officer effective March 31, 2015, for personal reasons. The company thanked Sutcliffe for her exemplary service, professionalism and dedication to the company over the past seven years and wished her well in her future endeavors. The company is in the process of identifying a suitable replacement.