Follow-Up To That Question on Black Cat

A reader who still works in Williston, and at one time was in the ceramics distribution system in the oil patch, provided the following:

Black cat is a 100% based Chinese product, or at least it was 12 months ago.

Black Cat is not a manufacturer; they are a trader. They purchase from a supplier and have the product labeled as their own.

One can divide ceramics into two basic sources: domestic and foreign.

The domestic ceramic is a lightweight-only product and it typically produced in Georgia (southeastern United States); CARBO Ceramics has a large manufacturing facility in Georgia. Their ceramic is made with kaolin. CARBO Ceramics has manufacturing facilities in the US, China, and Russia. [I think I had a long post on CARBO Ceramics at one time; how it started out in the US, moved operations to Russia years ago.]

The foreign-made ceramic is an intermediate strength (ISP) or high strength (HSP), which are bauxite-based products.

Intermediate strength and high strength ceramics cannot be made with kaolin, but lightweight ceramics can be made with bauxite. [Australia was the leading producer of bauxite in 2010, followed by China. Interestingly enough, rock rich in kaolin is also known as China clay.]

Six months ago, the standard price was 38 cents/pound for ceramic.

The range of ceramics used per well varied from a minimum of 100,000 pounds to as much as 3 million pounds.

As a side note, it was pointed out that a cubic foot of wheat typically weighs 48 - 52 pounds; a cubic foot of 20/40 ISP typically weighs about 110 pounds.