Oilfield Minerals: : Year in Review 2016

• Autores: Kasia Patel
• Localización: Industrial Minerals, ISSN 0019-8544, Nº. 589, 2016 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Diciembre/Enero)
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Rig counts for onshore drilling, a major end market for silica (frac) sand, barite (barytes), bentonite and proppant minerals, continued to drop globally, particularly in North America, in the first half of the year, although by the third quarter the pace of decline had slowed. Changes in technology used by oil and gas exploration firms, as companies drill more stages per well in order to cut costs, have led to the price of oil becoming more detached from rig count figures and a less concrete indicator of demand for oilfield minerals, as more frac sand is being used per well. In Q2, US-based Eagle Materials Inc. reported a 68% decline in frac sand volumes and financial losses were reported by other oilfield mineral players including Baker Hughes Inc., Halliburton, Carbo Ceramics Inc. and Fairmount Santrol Inc. Logistics costs have become increasingly relevant to frac sand profit margins, prompting some suppliers to integrate distribution capacity. Trump has expressed his avid support for the fossil fuels sector and put forward plans to open onshore and offshore rig leasing on federal land, eliminate moratoria on coal leasing and open shale energy deposits, with the aim of becoming independent of imported energy from "the...