Black Mountain Sand

Having identified the market opportunity for in-basin sand in Winter 2016, Black Mountain moved quickly, forming Black Mountain Sand in early 2017 and securing nearly 30,000 acres in the heart of the Permian Basin in West Texas.

Less than two years later, the company’s first truckload of Winkler White®, its flagship regional frac sand product, left the gate of the first of two state-of-the-art frac sand mines.

With annual production capacity reaching 19 million tons in three distinct hydrocarbon-producing regions, Black Mountain Sand was the largest in-basin sand supplier in the nation. The two flagship facilities, Vest and El Dorado, boasted a combined 12 million annual tons of nameplate capacity in the Permian Basin alone.

Why In-Basin Frac Sand

When oil prices plummeted in mid-2014, production companies across the U.S. set their sights on uncovering new methods of extracting oil, cheaper and more efficiently.

The adoption of in-basin frac sand is a product of this drive for innovation, delivering cost savings by significantly reducing shipping expenses which can account for 65 percent of frac sand costs.

Estimates at the time indicated using in-basin sand would reduce the total cost of drilling and completing a well upwards of 5 to 10 percent.

Domestic energy production surged and frac sand demand climbed accordingly, increasing to 115 tons in 2019, up from 76 million tons in 2017.

Black Mountain Sand positioned itself to help meet the demand with a combined annual production capacity equaling 16.5 percent of the market.

In November 2024, Black Mountain Sand merged with Covia Energy to form Iron Oak Energy Solutions.