This Week’s Market Buzz

• Select Sands Corp. has secured a $3.89 million capital expenditure line of credit to fund the company’s previously announced expansion project to increase production capacity of its high-quality silica sands to 1 million tpy to meet the growing demand of its existing client base. Zig Vitols, president and CEO of Select Sands said, “We are very excited to secure financing for our latest expansion project. We are continuously striving to meet the growing demand from our expanding customer base and this project will be a significant step in meeting that demand while also increasing profitability of the company.”

• Emerge Energy Services subsidiary Superior Silica Sands LLC has commenced frac sand shipments from its new San Antonio dry plant. The first shipments from the new dry plant were loaded and trucked directly to the Eagle Ford basin on May 5. As noted in last week’s first quarter 2018 earnings release, the new dry plant started production at the end of April, pre-loading silos with finished sand inventory.” While we have been shipping frac sand at the San Antonio site from our old production circuit for more than nine months, our new dry plant has now officially begun shipping frac sand,” said Rick Shearer, chief executive officer. “We have set ourselves apart from the competition by opening our new in-basin plant ahead of schedule and under budget. We are working hard to ramp up the plant’s output to reach full capacity of 2.4 million tons per year, as limited by our current permit. The construction of our new wet plant should be completed by July, which will allow us to achieve full production during the third quarter. We are also making progress on obtaining our new air permit that will expand the plant’s total capacity to 4 million dry tons per year. The public comment period for the new permit expired last week with no major comments or complaints. As a result, our confidence of obtaining this permit by the fourth quarter has increased. We remain very excited and upbeat about our business.”

• Over the objections of the oil and gas industry, and frac sand producers, two environmental groups are asking the federal government to protect a tiny West Texas reptile amid the failure of a state-crafted plan to conserve it. The Center for Biological Diversity and Defenders of Wildlife petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list the dunes sagebrush lizard as threatened or endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act.

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