Black Sand, Grey Sand -- Bakken, North Dakota, USA

If you google "proppants ceramics oil" today, the first hit regards Chinese proppants, the second hit is about Carbo Ceramics, the company that started in Texas, and then outsourced their manufacturing process to Russia, if I remember correctly.

I was unaware of the Chinese proppants until this week; I was only aware of the Russian ceramics.

China Ceramic Proppant (Guizhou) Ltd is a manufacturer of Ceramic Proppant in Guizhou, China. Being one of the best ceramic proppants in the world, all products - Pacific MidProp made by China Ceramic Proppant (Guizhou) Ltd are exported to overseas markets.

China Ceramic Proppant (Guizhou) Ltd is also the only Chinese manufacturer that has a distribution network in North America, which facilitates the fastest and most convenient delivery of our products to the customers.

I can't remember exactly how I asked the question to one of the local oil company employees (pretty high up in the food chain of that particular company), but his reply was Chinese proppants. That suggested to me that the market in the local area was seeing more Chinese proppants than Russian proppants. To me, it doesn't matter. It was just an interesting observation.

The Russian proppant is black in color and is referred to as (Russian) black sand. The Chinese proppant, on the other hand, is lighter in color and referred to as grey sand. Or maybe it's gray sand.

I was told that several railroad cars come in twice a week from the west coast with Chinese proppants and are off-loaded here in Williston. From here, much of it goes to Beulah, North Dakota, where it is distributed nationwide.

It makes sense that the Chinese proppants might be making a bigger inroad here in North Dakota: huge ports on the west coast, particularly in Portland, Oregon, and then a straight shot on the railroad to Williston. I could be wrong, but depending on where the Russians ship their proppants, if it ends up at the Houston port, it would be a bit of a less-direct shot for trains to transport it to North Dakota. But something tells me the railroads have this figured out, also.

I'll try to get a photograph of the Guizhou proppants as they come of the train some day. According to their website: 

All our products are packed in 1500kg tote bags. The bags are made of double layer pp material, in addition to a plastic inner bag. For severe weather conditions like in Siberia, an additional plastic outer bag is used for further weather protection.

Photos of Chinese proppants here.