Darwin Office
3/85 Winnellie Road,
Winnellie NT 0820
Telephone: 08 8947 5002
Registered Office
Wardell Nominees Pty Ltd
NT House Level7, 22 Mitchell Street
Darwin NT 0800
Telephone: + 61 8 981 7144
Territory Sands has three Frac sand deposits totalling 108 million tonnes of sand dedicated to servicing the Beetaloo Basin with a trucking distance of 50-150km from most Beetaloo Basin gas wells.
Frac sand (proppant) needs to be a high quality clean rounded quartz sand. The basic premiss of fracking shale basins is to pump large volumes of sand (around 3000 tonnes of sand per horizontal kilometre) and water under high pressure into drill holes to infill and hold/prop open fractures in target shale formations to create the conductivity necessary for oil and gas to flow from low-permeability shale up to surface through the permeable sands.
Frac sand is highly specialized silica because it plays a critical role in the design of the hydraulic fracturing treatment. The standards and specifications are established by the American Petroleum Institute (API) and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). These organisations describe sand in terms of grain size, crush resistance, roundness and mineralogy.
Larrimah 20/40 Frac Sand
Territory Sands Frac sand from the Larrimah area is a high purity 99.3-99.4% SiO2 after processing.
Larrimah 70/140 Frac sand
The Company has pegged 9 EMLs on the following three sand deposits for Frac sand and possibly foundry sand (ranked in order of priority from shallowest to deepest):
- Forest Hill South Project – 36 million tonnes of sand
- Forest Hill North – 20 million tonnes of sand
- Vermelha Project – 51 million tonnes of sand
Hydraulic fracturing is a high-pressure pumping process that has been used for more than 60 years to enhance oil and gas production. There are no known Frac sand suppliers in the Northern Territory and a limited number of suppliers in Queensland and South Australia. To date, Frac sand has either been imported into Australia or trucked 2000km north from Adelaide.
Apart from sand quality, logistics is the key to a successful Frac sand operation. In the Carpentaria Basin of the NT, our sand quarries will generally be 50-150km from the bulk of all Beetaloo Sub-Basin gas wells and our truck deliveries of sand will not pass through a single township.
Our three quarry sites are located 500m to 8km from the Stuart Highway. The main laboratory tests for Frac sand test for the following:
- Particle Size Distribution (Proppant sizes 20/40 – 30/50 – 40/70 -70/140 – 100 mesh);
- Sphericity;
- Roundness;
- Crush Strength Test;
- Bulk Density;
- Turbidity; and
- Acid Solubility
EML (Quarry Lease) Applications for Larrimah Frac Sand
Shallow Sand Horizon at Forrest Hill South
Shallow Sand Horizon at Forrest Hill North
Shallow Sand Horizon at Vermelha
