• Arrows Up LLC, an affiliate of both OmniTRAX Inc., one of the largest privately held transportation-service companies in North America and The Broe Group, was issued U.S. Patent No. 9,650,216 titled “Bulk Material Shipping Container Unloader” on May 16, 2017. The patent covers the design, construction and usage of the Arrows Up Rack & Riser, which helps shippers of frac sand and other bulk commodities quickly and efficiently unload product into storage or transport receptacles. “Our intellectual property around the loading, transport and unloading of bulk materials positions Arrows Up as the leading solution provider for the frac sand and related industries. We can now help shippers and receivers manage their commodities with more precision, while reinforcing safety throughout the supply chain,” said John Allegretti, founder and CEO of Arrows Up.
• Mammoth Energy Service Inc. announced that on May 26, 2017, it closed the acquisition of substantially all of the assets of Chieftain Sand and Proppant LLC for $36 million in cash, including closing adjustments. Arty Straehla, chief executive officer, commented, “The acquisition of the Chieftain assets was strategic for Mammoth as we now have access to the Union Pacific railway with unit train capabilities, which provides a low cost solution to move sand into the Mid-continent, in support of our pressure pumping operations in the area, and into the Texas markets where there remains significant demand for high quality sand. We intend to restart the dry plant in the coming weeks with the restart of the wet plant in the coming months once selective upgrades are performed. Mammoth expects to have nearly four million tons per year of processing capacity and approximately 75 million tons of estimated sand reserves once it closes the acquisition of Taylor Frac, which is expected to occur in early June.”
• Wisconsin’s environmental protection agency has authorized a Georgia timber company to fill more than 16 acres of Monroe County wetlands in order to build a $65 million frac sand facility, according to the LaCrosse Tribune. Meteor Timber, one of the largest private landowners in Wisconsin, has proposed building a processing and loading facility along Interstate 94 near the town of Millston to dry and ship frac sand the company will mine from a nearby site it acquired in a 2014 purchase of nearly 50,000 acres. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources granted the company a permit allowing it to fill the wetlands, including about 13 acres of “pristine” and increasingly rare hardwood swamp. “We are pleased that the DNR has approved our wetland permit, and we look forward to continuing to work with the agency as the regulatory process progresses,” project manager Chris Mathis said in a written statement to the Tribune. “Our project will protect more than 40 acres of wetland for every one impacted, making it one of the largest wetland preservation and restoration efforts in Wisconsin history.”