Just a year after rushing into America’s busiest oil field with new mines, frac-sand producers may have overdone it. West Texas sand used in the hydraulic fracturing process will drop 19 percent this year to about $30 a ton compared to 2018, according to industry consultant Rystad Energy AS. Sand pricing is a key financial input for oil explorers because fracking is the most expensive phase in drilling an oil well. A slew of new West Texas mines close to Permian Basin drilling sites is elbowing Midwest mines that formerly dominated the frac-sand trade. Miners in and around Wisconsin that controlled 75 percent of the market in 2014 will see that diminish to 34 percent in 2020, Ryan Carbrey, Rystad’s senior vice president of shale research, told Petroleum […]