• The Jackson County, Wis., Board of Adjustment approved a variance request by Taylor Frac to allow for a second sand screener and storage structure to be built at its current facility near Taylor, Wis. According to the Jackson City Chronicle, the structure will stand to a height of 105 ft., which is higher than the maximum structure height of 45 ft. allowed by the Jackson County zoning ordinance. The new structure will be nearly identical to the current sand screener and storage structure that received its own zoning variance in 2012. The two buildings will be separated by 25 ft. and have a bridge that will connect the two for maintenance access. There will also be an additional wash sand pile that will be added to feed the drying structure.
• Athabasca Minerals Inc. announced that Robert J. Beekhuizen has been appointed chief executive officer of the corporation, effective June 19, 2017. Beekhuizen has extensive international executive leadership experience in the construction and energy industries. He has previously held executive positions at AltaGas Ltd., Granite Construction Inc., Fluor Canada Ltd., Husky Energy and URS/Flint Energy Services.
• Since the demand for frac sand directly depends on drilling activity, here are the latest rig counts provided by Baker Hughes. The U.S. rotary crude oil rig count rose by 11 to 733 for the week ending June 2, 2017, compared to the previous week. For the week ending May 5, 2017, the count crossed the 700 mark for the first time since April 2015. Crude oil rigs hit a low in the last week of May 2016. The U.S. oil-rig count has risen for 20 weeks and only fell one week so far in 2017. However at press time, Brent futures were down $1.81, or 3.7 percent, at $46.91 and U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was down $1.75, or 3.8 percent, at $44.71 per barrel.