Select Sands acquires UP-served rail loading plant in Arkansas

Select Sands America Corp. has completed its acquisition of a rail loading facility in Diaz, Arkansas, and has begun a project to reconfigure it.

The Diaz rail facility connects to a Union Pacific Railroad mainline.

Select Sands ultimately paid $2 million for the Diaz facility, company officials said in a press release. The reconfiguration project calls for installation of dry-process equipment aimed at increasing efficiency.

"Dry processing at Diaz will immediately save approximately 16 miles of interplant transportation and over one hour in transload logistics," company officials said in a press release.

In addition, Select Sands has begun a program to increase its truck fleet to lower costs.

"Shipments starting at the beginning of the year for our long-term supply contract made it an opportune time to leverage our high-capacity transload facility located in George West, Texas, by optimizing operations in Arkansas," said Select Sands President and Chief Executive Officer Zig Vitols. "The start of the year has been very encouraging, and we look forward to building volume into the second quarter."

Select Sands America is a subsidiary of British Columbia-based Select Sands Corp., an industrial silica product company.