SUGAR LAND--December 15, 2017--Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--This week's announcement of a merger by two frac sand miners shows how the material is big business in North America as U.S. drilling for oil and gas in shale formations increases. Unimin Corporation (New Canaan, Connecticut) and Fairmount Santrol (NYSE:FMSA) (Sugar Land, Texas) announced that they would merge into a New York Stock Exchange-listed company with expected annual revenue of $2 billion. While both companies have diverse interests in the Metals & Minerals sector, frac sand is a large part of the businesses and is expected to represent 55% of the new company's gross profits. Unimin is a wholly owned subsidiary of Belgium minerals company SCR-Sibelco (Antwerp, Belgium).

Within this article: Details of U.S. frac sand projects

Other companies featured: U.S. Silica Holdings Incorporated (NYSE:SLCA), Emerge Energy Services (NYSE:EMES)