Preoccupied with oil prices, API and EIA production reports and rig counts, most U.S. oil industry watchers miss one quiet segment of this industry that is actually thriving and will, in all likelihood, continue to thrive in the near future. This segment is sand mining. Hydraulic fracturing involves injecting highly pressurized water into a well and then pouring sand into it in order to keep the tiny fractures created by the water blast open, and then widening them so that more crude oozes from the shale rock. When oil companies talk about constantly improving the efficiency of their wells, one common theme is increasing the amount of sand they pour into them. More sand makes for more oil, at no great cost increase. As energy analyst and industry veteran Robert Rapier notes in an article for Investing Daily, sand miners supplying shale boomers suffered badly when prices tanked. Now, […]