Hi-Crush Inc. is trying to sell off one of its four Wisconsin frac sand mines after facing bankruptcy last year, according to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.
Hi-Crush, based in Houston, is selling off the Whitehall sand production facility, according to a posting on Heritage Global Partners, an auction service. An auction for the site – and all of its equipment and machinery – began accepting bids. No further information was available about current bids for the facility or equipment.
The company filed for bankruptcy last year after laying off 67 workers, including 35 at the Whitehall facility. The company in October emerged from the bankruptcy with a new internal organization.
Prior to the filing, Hi-Crush Proppants was one of the state’s biggest producers of frac sand, according to Wisconsin Public Radio. [https://www.wpr.org/frac-sand-company-liquidating-western-wisconsin-mine] Hi-Crush’s mine in the city of Whitehall opened in 2014 and boasted a production capacity of nearly 3 million tons of frac sand per year. At the time, the price of oil was peaking at more than $100 per barrel and demand for Wisconsin’s “northern white” sand was prized by energy companies for its uniformity and strength.
The market shift dealt a heavy blow to Wisconsin sand mines. In 2019, Superior Silica Sands declared bankruptcy and idled mines in Chippewa and Barron counties. That was followed by bankruptcy filings from Covia Holdings Corp., which operates a mine in Menomonie, and Hi-Crush.
Hi-Crush’s Whitehall mine was the site of a massive industrial spill in 2018 when the company emptied more than 10 million gal. of muddy water with high concentrations of heavy metals from a holding pond in order to save a worker whose bulldozer slid into the basin and remained underwater for two hours.