Shale oil and gas have become one of the fastest developing trends in onshore domestic oil as well as gas exploration and production today. The unconventional natural gas (shale gas, tight sands, and coal bed methane) production increased by over 60% in the last decade and it is estimated that the unconventional natural gas production accounts for almost half of the total U.S. natural gas production to date.

Hydraulic fracturing is proven to be an effective stimulation technique and is the most widely used method of increasing the production of oil and natural gas wells. Fracing can increase the production rates and the amount of oil and natural gas ultimately recovered from the wells. Hydraulic fracturing in shale wells typically utilizes slick water fracs that are primarily water, pumped at high pressure, along with proppants as well as other additives and chemicals as the fluid requires to stimulate the formation.

Proppants are used to hold the fracture open once the fracturing pressure is released. Proppants create a pathway for the transmission of hydrocarbons and maintain the porosity and the permeability needed to allow the commercial flow of oil and gas.

The demand for proppants rapidly rose due to the increased use of hydraulic fracturing in horizontal and vertical wellbores in the ever expanding unconventional oil and gas plays throughout North America.