• Mammoth Energy Services has agreed to acquire frac sand mining company Taylor Frac and two oilfield service businesses for issuance of 7 million common shares. Based upon Mammoth Energy Services’ March 20 closing price of $19.06/share, the value of the transaction is $133.8 million, including the assumption of $7.3 million in debt. Mammoth Energy Services said it plans to expand the Taylor Frac processing facility to 1.75 million tpy by year-end 2017 at an estimated cost of $23 million. Chieftain Sand and Proppant LLC won a bankruptcy court order approving its $35 million sale to Mammoth Energy Services as well.
• Smart Sand Inc. announced that based on increasing demand for the company’s premier Northern White raw frac sand, it plans to expand its rail siding and transload facility on the Union Pacific network in Byron Township, Wis., to allow unit train shipments from this facility. The expansion is expected to be completed in approximately six months. Additionally, the company is evaluating other locations along the Union Pacific network within the operating basins to develop additional unit train capable transload facilities. “We are excited about this new opportunity with Union Pacific,” stated Charles Young, chief executive officer of Smart Sand. “The expansion of our Byron transload facility to be unit train capable, positions us to take full advantage of the Union Pacific rail network to provide competitive and efficient transportation services to our customers in all operating basins which Union Pacific serves.”
• Nevada could become the third state in the nation to ban hydraulic fracturing, according to the Reno Gazette-Journal. The state, in 2014, enacted fracking regulations some say are among the strictest in the nation, but a new proposal would ban it outright. According to Assemblyman Justin Watkins (D-Las Vegas) who introduced the ban in Assembly Bill 159, “The risks far outweigh the benefits in this state.”