The Oilfield Technology Group of Hexion Inc. is expanding its resin coated proppant manufacturing facility in Alberta, Canada. The expansion will provide a more efficient supply of proppants to fracturing service companies and operators in the oil and gas industry.

According to company officials, Hexion’s proppant plant located in Sturgeon County, north of Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta, Canada is in the process of a phased expansion project, which will significantly increase capacity and logistics capability to efficiently service the Canadian market. These improvements will provide significant additional manufacturing capacity to support the future growth in the Canadian proppant market. The internal plant capacity is expected to be completed by the fourth quarter of 2016.

The expansion project includes the purchase of additional land for the installation of track that will accommodate over 100 railcars. New storage silos will ensure ample sand supplies, especially during peak seasons. Production capacity improvements will allow for quicker response to market demand and on-time delivery of product through Hexion’s industry-leading transloading network that services the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin.

“Hexion is a leading supplier of resin coated proppants to the oil and gas industry and this expansion will increase our manufacturing and delivery capabilities to meet the needs of our customers,” said Jerry Kurinsky, Senior Vice President/General Manager, OTG. “These investments demonstrate our continued commitment to our customers in Canada. Hexion will be ready to meet the demands of the industry when the market recovers.”

“This plant is currently the only proppant manufacturing facility in Canada within the industry and produces a variety of products such as Hexion’s Yukon Black proppants, which are a next-generation resin coated sand that bonds at low temperatures,” company officials said. “These proppants are ideal for fracture treatments in the low temperature reservoirs in Canada where flowback control is necessary. Low temperature bonding down to 70°F (21°C) bottom-hole static temperature is achieved without the use of a consolidation aid. “

“Resin coated proppants are used in the hydraulic fracturing process to help optimize production from oil and gas wells by maximizing fracture flow capacity from the reservoir to the wellbore,” officials explained. “Technological innovations and Hexion’s introduction of enhanced materials have expanded the use of resin coated proppants into unconventional reservoirs that feature complex and challenging geological formations.”