With the ever growing frac sand industry, FMT Dry Cargo is set to take delivery of 50 new covered hopper barges (30 rakes and 20 boxes). This addition of 50 new barges will bring the total fleet for the FMT Dry Cargo division to just over 300 barges. These barges are dedicated to our large sand customers, including Capital Sand Proppants, U.S. Silica, and Carbo Ceramics, to name a few. Since 2005, the demand for frac sand has increased dramatically as thousands of oil and gas wells are being stimulated using the hydraulic fracturing process. A few thousand tons of frac sand can be required to stimulate a single well. The continuing surge of specialized drilling has created a billion-dollar frac sand industry in a very short time. This year, FMT Dry Cargo is on track to move over 350,000 tons of frac sand per month.
