Geologists Looking For Fracking Sand Source In North Dakota -- Fracking Sand Costs -- Transportation -- August 26, 2018

Cost of sand / transportation:

• Wisconsin sand producers seek transportation relief; Transport Topics, July 30, 2018
• the cost of mining frack sand in Illinois, June 10, 2018: $110 / ton; $40 of the $110 is "pure profit"
• $40 / ton, WSJ, March 23, 2017
• Permian, $350K of sand / well; SeekingAlpha, March 7, 2017
• Hi-Crush buys Permian Basin Sand, March 1, 2017
• $30 - $40 / ton; John Kemp, February 22, 2017
• Hi-Crush: $64 / ton -- 2016
• cost of shipping from mid-Wisconsin to northeast Colorado, $175 / ton; reader; August 26, 2014 
• this article,  Wisconsin sand producers seek transportation relief; Transport Topics, July 30, 2018:
• complaining about lack of rail competition
• nominal rail cost has doubled since 2001
• a lot of complaining, but no cost / ton / distance provided

So, in round numbers, maybe:

• $60 / ton for fracking sand (up from $20 / ton at the beginning of the Bakken boom)
• $150 / ton for shipping by truck (?)

But here's the best analysis, perhaps, from a PDF that I cannot link, a PLG presentation at JPMorgan, January 11, 2018:

Notice the cost to get the sand the last mile!

Now the article sent to me be a reader, data points:

• operators looking for "local" source of fracking sand to cut down on shipping costs
• operators using an average of 2,500 to 5,000 tons / well
• from the article:

Fred Anderson, geologist with the North Dakota Geological Survey, authored a study in 2011 that said North Dakota sand sources approach oil industry standards for use in fracking but are lower in overall quality than other U.S. sources.

There's a renewed interest in that research, however, as demand for sand increases and companies experiment with lower-cost options.

"They're accepting sands that we probably never would have accepted 10 to 15 years ago," said Monte Besler, owner of FRACN8R Consulting in Williston.

For CLR, twenty million lbs of sand = 10,000 tons

• product at $60/ton = $600,000
• transportation at $150/ton = $1.5 million
• sand + transportation: upwards of $2 million 

At a more conservative 5,000 tons, the cost can come down to $1 million (sand + transportation).