Story Of The Year If This Pans Out? Fracking-Grade Sand In Southwestern South Dakota? -- June 7, 2014

Updates

July 30, 2017: a June 30, 2015, story suggests South Dakota Proppants is still in business.

July 30, 2017: a 2014 story from The Rapid City Journal says sand in western South Dakota, mostly the Black Hills is not suitable for fracking. Thank goodness. 

July 1, 2015: from Linked In, undated, I believe. 

July 6, 2014: an update in the Rapid City Journal. I don't think there was anything new except to say that if the company started activity today, it would take about two years before the Bakken would see any sand from the Black Hills. Given the federal government and the native Americans and the South Dakota state tourism board, I'm not holding my breath.  

Original Post

One of my weaknesses is my hyperbole, and this may be another case of hyperbole, but on a quiet Saturday night, this article certainly got my attention. NaturalGasIntel.com is reporting:

Denver-based South Dakota Proppants (SDP) is proceeding with plans to develop a mine on federal lands in southwestern South Dakota to supply sand used in hydraulic fracturing (fracking) for shale oil/natural gas production in the Williston and Denver Julesburg (DJ) Basins in North Dakota and Colorado.

Earlier this year, the South Dakota Department of Environment and Natural Resources released a study by the University of South Dakota concluding that the state's grains don't meet American Petroleum Institute (API) specifications for proppant sand. SDP Managing Member Patric Galvin said he knew differently, but for proprietary reasons he kept quiet, he told NGI's Shale Daily on Thursday.

Galvin said his company plans to submit a mining plan in South Dakota to create a $66 million, 1 million ton/year fracking sand mine on 950 acres of public access U.S. Forest Service (USFS) lands that he estimates have 70 million proven recoverable tons of "high quality fracking sand." He said it will take 24 months before product will be available for commercial shipments.

The company has begun the permitting phase, which will be headed by the USFS, with help from the state, including DENR, whose earlier study did not include the lands SDP is pursuing. Subsequently, the state geologist and DENR confirmed Galvin's analysis that sand at his proposed site does meet API specifications for proppant, adding that the SDP samples appeared to be of "better quality" than the ones the state study had examined.

I told the reader who sent this to me that any time I see USFS (US Forest Service) and fracking-grade sand in the same story I get concerned but if this pans out, it's going to be quite a story.

Back-of-the-envelope:

• one million tons = 1 million x 2,000 pounds = 2,000,000,000 lbs / 4,000,000 (amount of sand to frack one Bakken well) =  500 wells

If I did the math correctly, that's not a trivial amount of sand.

The article has these data points:

The U.S. market currently uses 53 million tons of proppant annually with the market growing at about 3% per year, Galvin said. Since activity in the Williston represents one-third of the nation's largest shale developments, he estimates that about 20% of the 53 million tons are being used in the Bakken/Three Forks plays.

An average fracking job requires from 5,000 to 8,000 tons of sand for each well.

"Some companies are increasing the size of the wellbore to lower the pressure at the end of the pipe and provide more flow as the horizontal runs are getting to be very long," Galvin said. "This increase will require more sand as well, so the need for increased volumes-per-well is also on the horizon."

The bulk of the proppant used in the Bakken comes from Ottawa, Canada and Wisconsin, requiring rail transportation that costs about $35-40/ton more than shorter, truck shipments, Galvin said. Truck transportation of sand to the Bakken from South Dakota would cut the cost of the product an average of $8-20/ton, "making [our] sand the low-cost provider for the surrounding oil basins," he said.

The South Dakota mine site would be located about 300 miles to either the Bakken or Niobrara oil/gas drilling sites.

Somewhere my math must be off. The article says "an average fracking job requires 5,000 to 8,000 tons of sand for each well. A ton is 2,000 lbs. 5,000 tons is 10 million pounds which is seldom the amount seen in the Bakken except for the new completions used by EOG. Unless they're using a different size ton in South Dakota.

Go to the linked article for the data points. I might have made a mistake somewhere along the line.

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Note to the Granddaughters

It is an incredibly beautiful night for biking in the Dallas-Ft Worth Area. There's a debate in Dallas this past month on the bicycle helmet law. Dallas is the only city in the area that requires a helmet regardless of age. None of the cities I bike in require a helmet for adults. I don't wear a helmet, but if required, I would follow the law. Dallas plans to start up a "rent-a-bike" program similar to the one Boston has; it won't work if helmets are required. People generally don't walk around carrying bike helmets "just in case." I expect Dallas to repeal the helmet requirement for adults but to save face will issue a very, very strongly worded statement that the city highly, highly, highly encourages everyone to wear a helmet while riding. I wonder if adults are required to wear bike helmets in NYC where they frown upon adults drinking "Big Gulps."

But I digress. It's an absolutely beautiful night to ride, so I took a long ride up the highway to Grapevine, and found a wi-fi / computer friendly McDonalds on south Main, Grapevine. I've been here before. Very nice.

It's hard for me to blog without music. Wow, I haven't heard Mazzy Starr in in years. I enjoyed them many years ago, but over time lost track of them. Then this, out of the blue. I had not seen it and certainly have not played it -- although not that I'm listening to it, I seem to have a vague recollection that I've come across it before -- be that as it may, here it is (again?):

Seasons of Your Day, Mazzy Starr
Whoever posted it at YouTube, also posted this:

If psychedelic music had a voice in '90s post-punk, Mazzy Star may have been its strongest reincarnation. That doesn't necessarily mean that fans of the Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead will find the band to their liking, however. Mazzy Star much preferred the dark side of psychedelia, as exemplified by the most distended tracks of the Doors and the Velvet Underground. Their fuzzy guitar workouts and plaintive folky compositions are often suffused in a dissociative ennui that is very much of the '90s, however much their textures may recall the drug-induced states of vintage psychedelia.

'Seasons Of Your Day' is full of solid songwriting, the six piece haven't bothered to conform to an audience, instead they've grown with them. Hope Sandoval's vocal chords are as dreamy as ever. Coupled with a country feel, this record is certainly not "alternative rock" as they're occasionally labelled. Given that it's been more than fifteen years since the group's last full length, it's amazing how cohesive this album is. After all, it was recorded over an extended period (and self produced) across locations in Norway, London and California.

The reviewer certainly name-dropped a lot of bands. He/she should have included Lana Del Rey.