Canada’s Select Sands Corp. will buy a wet processing plant, equipment and related assets near the Sandtown silica deposits in Arkansas from Tutle Holdings. The company said Aug. 23 that it entered an asset purchase agreement.

Select Sands will pay Tutle US CA$475,000 in cash and US$75,000 in Select Sands common shares for a total purchase price of US$550,000. Completion of the transaction is subject to TSX Venture Exchange approval.

Tutle Holdings, which owns the plant, is the largest frack sand trucking company in the U.S.

Select Sands President & CEO Rasool Mohammad said that the acquisition will likely lower production costs of the 40/70 and 100 mesh silica sand products.

The wet processing plant is currently being contracted by Select Sands to produce Northern White 40/70 and 100 mesh silica sand products with daily capacity of 1,500 tons per day. The wet processing plant includes feed hopper, conveyor, classifiers, cyclones, and control building.

According to a June 2015 mineral resource estimate and preliminary economic assessment completed by Tetra Tech, the initial capital cost for a processing facility to produce Tier 1 sand from the Sandtown deposit was estimated at US$42.3 million, of which the wet processing plant costs were estimated to be US$11.47 million.