Tunnel City Frac Sand Plant Adds Workers Despite Sluggish Market

While Wisconsin’s frac sand industry remains in a year-long lull, one company is adding workers to keep up with demand.

Connecticut-based Unimin Corp. announced it will hire an additional 19 full-time employees at it’s frac sand operation in Tunnel City, near Tomah. Regional general manager Scott Atkins said this marks a complete turnaround from March when the company announced it would shut down its plant due to a drop in demand.

“Fortunately, real early in April, we saw an uptick for demand of our products out of our Tunnel City facility, and we also received some additional commitments from key customers,” said Atkins.

While Unimin adds workers, many other frac sand facilities in Wisconsin lay dormant. Atkins said Unimin’s other facilities in the Midwest are busy, but haven’t seen the same boost in demand as its brand new, state-of-the-art processing and transload plant in Tunnel City.

“There’s still uncertainty out there, but we have seen some positive trends in the second quarter as compared with the first quarter,” Atkins said. “So, we’re just hopeful we can continue to see demand increase and move forward.”

In a statement, Unimin said increased business at the Tunnel City facility will mean up to $200,000 in economic benefits for the town of Greenfield, which gets 10 cents for every ton of sand Unimin ships in 2016.

By that math, Unimin plans to ship 2,000,000 tons of frac sand by the end of the year.