PBIOS - October 2018 - 148

Permian Basin Reports
storing 1,680 tons of sand, he says. The
silos are filled from the top by a hydraulic
conveyer with a feature that accommodates
belly-dump trucks that can carry up to
25 tons and unload in an average of 10
minutes, Gillespie reports.
The company also has invested with
the Texas Department of Transportation
to improve road frontage in front of its
facilities, Gillespie says, including installing aggress and egress lanes to allow
truck traffic to come on and off the road
safely and quickly.
Second In-Basin Mine
Formed in 2010, Houston-based
Hi-Crush was the first to open an inbasin mine in July 2017 at Kermit to
supplement northern white supplies
shipped from the company's mines in
Wisconsin, but continually growing Permian demand has the company eagerly
anticipating the late December startup of
a second Permian mine as it adds logistics
capabilities through expansions and acquisitions, says Chief Financial Officer
Laura Fulton.
The initial Kermit area mine achieved
its nameplate 3 million tons/year capacity
by October 2017, she says.
"It really helped broaden our product

portfolio because we did not have as
much 100-mesh sand from our northern
white mines to meet growing demand,
so it's been a great benefit for us and our
customers," Fulton assesses. Full capacity
is expected to be achieved at the second
in-basin mine (located one mile away
from the first) in the first quarter of 2019,
she says.
A newly signed supply and services
agreement with a company that Hi-Crush
identifies only as a major oil and gas
customer is anchoring development of
the new Kermit facility and an 850,000ton/year expansion at its Wyeville northern
white plant in Wisconsin, Fulton reports.
Hi-Crush has not stopped with mines
as a part of its operations strategy to offer
well operators an integrated solution from
the sand mine to the blender hopper, she
says. The company also has Permian terminals at Pecos, Odessa and Big Spring to
facilitate northern white sand deliveries.
"With our three terminals and our
soon-to-be two mining facilities, we have
the ability to serve our customers well
with their proppant needs," Fulton says.
At the well site, the company offers
a solution called PropStream™, which
delivers proppant using containers or
silos, she details. Both use a fully en-

Hi-Crush Partners was the ﬁrst to open an in-basin mine in July 2017 near Kermit, providing 3 million tons/year to supplement northern white supplies shipped from the company's mines in Wisconsin. In December, Hi-Crush expects to commence operations of
a second Permian mine-located one mile from the ﬁrst mine-while also undertaking an
850,000-ton/year expansion at its Wyeville northern white plant in Wisconsin.

148 THE AMERICAN OIL & GAS REPORTER

closed conveyer system to reduce dust
and noise exposure to well site personnel,
Fulton says.
The silos come courtesy of a $60million agreement to acquire FB Industries Inc., a leading manufacturer and
marketer of silo-based frac sand management systems, which Hi-Crush announced in July. "What we have found
over the years is that some customers
prefer containers and some prefer silos,"
Fulton remarks. "We provide not only
sand, including northern white and inbasin sand, but also all of the different
last-mile solutions that our customers
need. The Permian operations consist
of a fully integrated strategy that fits
our operational strategy referred to as
'mine, move, manage.'"
The company continues to implement
cost-saving measures that include an initiative to cut loading time at its Kermit
mine by 30 seconds per truck, which is
substantial when considering that the first
facility accommodates 500 truckloads a
day, she says.
Using more containers for delivering
proppant to locations allows more sand
per truckload because containerized trucks
can carry 10-15 percent more with each
load, allowing eight loads to be reduced
to seven, Fulton explains.
"One truck may not seem like that
big of a deal, but when you talk about
the hundreds of trucks that are needed to
deliver sand in a well completion, you
are eliminating 40-50 cycles," she notes.
"That can be a tremendous cost savings."
Containers also are quicker to offload at
the well site, which saves on truck demurrage time.
The FB silos store about 30 percent
more proppant than conventional silos,
further increasing customer efficiency.
The silo system also includes an innovative, fully enclosed conveyer that works
with hopper-bottom trucks to top fill silos
in about one-sixth the time of pneumatics
with significantly less dust and noise,
Fulton says.
"With the outlook for the growth of
crude oil production in the Permian and
more drilling and increasing proppant intensity per well, proppant demand will
only increase," Fulton points out. "Logistics challenges are real, so anything
we can do to continue to save on trucking
times and increase the amount of sand

PBIOS - October 2018

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