I’ve been waiting for over a year for someone to start talking about the opportunity for consolidation in the proppant and frac sand market. With a plethora of small operators, pricing expected to drop 9% per year for the next three years, and the top ten players accounting for 55% of capacity, it seems like consolidation makes sense. Some of the smaller operators are likely eager to get back their investments, made in many cases when everyone expected demand to continue to rise. The larger operators likely want to secure more clients under contract and eliminate some smaller players who may be undercutting pricing. I’m not an M&A expert, but I would not be surprised if we started hearing about some smaller acquisitions in the proppant world. Read more about it in this article in Oil & Gas Investor.
