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December 2015
21 December 2015
A roundup of the year's main events in the global oilfield minerals industries.
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July 2015
22 July 2015
While predictions for the oil and gas industry range between bottomed out to a distant turnaround as far away as 2017, so far frac sand has gained market share due to its availability, price and changing trends in fracking, Kasia Patel, North American Editor, finds.
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May 2015
28 May 2015
The UK is actively looking at the potential production of shale gas and, as a result, the country’s extractive minerals industry is looking at the role it can play in providing minerals that could be used in hydraulic fracturing (fracking). One such mineral is silica sand, which is used as a proppant, commonly referred to as “frac sand”. Clive Mitchell, Industrial Minerals Specialist, provides an educated guess as to where this frac sand could come from in the UK.
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28 May 2015
The US has long enjoyed a successful fracking industry, having drilled more than a million wells to date. Yet, with plummeting oil prices causing some to question the short-term success of this process, Vasili Nicoletopoulos* provides an executive summary of IM’s latest research report on the US proppants market.
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28 May 2015
North America’s fracking industry was rocked towards the end of 2014 after the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which controls nearly 40% of the world oil market, failed to agree on production curbs. This, coupled with a US oversupply situation, sent the oil price tumbling. With rig counts, drilling activity and proppant demand taking a hit as a result, many began to question the impact this decision would have on the future of fracking and, as a result, proppants.*
Emma Hughes and Vasili Nicoletopoulos
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28 May 2015
The UK's Convervative party has pledged to support fracking in a bid to boost domestic energy production. Emma Hughes explores what this means for industrial minerals.