Select Sands Corp. has submitted a Quarry Mining Permit Application to the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) for its Sandtown project in Northeast Arkansas.
The quarry mining permit includes Reclamation Bond Instrument, five-year mine plan, and a public notice in an Arkansas daily newspaper.
The Select Sands Corp. Sandtown project near Cave City, Ark., is 99 percent pure silica (SiO2) and high crush resistance of 30/50 mesh 7K, 40/70 mesh 9K and 100 mesh of 10K (suitable to be used in the extraction of oil and gas as ‘Ottawa White’ Tier-1 frac sand).
The high purity (99 percent SiO2) silica is also suitable for industrial use including float/flat glass (automotive windshield and architectural glass), solar glass, computer/cell phone screens, fiberglass, construction, and building products.
Prices and volumes for Industrial Silica sand were higher in 2014 in the flat glass and fiberglass industry, where it is used in raw form to make glass. Overall demand growth is expected to continue in the flat glass, fiberglass, construction, and building products industries in the U.S. aided by low regional energy (natural gas) costs. Growth is anticipated to remain the strongest in the U.S., including a further strengthening of the initial growth that started in 2014 in the non-residential construction, automotive, and photovoltaics (solar glass) sectors.
Frac sand demand decline in 2014 due to low rig-counts in the U.S. is partially offset by the sand use increase per well. The number of drilled but uncompleted wells (DUC) is still increasing in the U.S. Bringing these DUC wells onstream alone will require about 9 million-18 million mt of Tier-1 frac sand.
“We are encouraged by the demand increase in the industrial silica sand market, offsetting decline in the frac sand market,” commented the company president, Rasool Mohammad. “However, as per the recent IHS, Eagle Ford, Texas, DUC inventory of April 9, 2015, nearly 40 percent of the 1,400 DUCs (in Eagle Ford) are considered to have attractive economics (break-even costs below $30 per barrel); the demand for frac sand is expected to improve short-medium term.”