HANNIBAL, Ohio — Progress with fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, is ongoing – so much that Wildcat Minerals out of Golden, Colo. has opened a frac sand and proppant transloading facility in Hannibal, in the Utica Shale. Hannibal, in Monroe County in eastern Ohio, borders West Virginia.

"This new facility will enable our company to store more than 10,000 tons of proppants, and receive unit trains and barges," Wildcat Minerals co-founder and Chair Steve Herron said. "Wildcat’s expansion into the Utica further increases our national footprint."

Proppant is a solid material (normally sand or manmade ceramic materials) designed to keep an induced hydraulic fracture open during or following a fracturing treatment. This material is added to fracking fluid during this process.

Hydraulic fracturing is a technique in which rock is fractured by hydraulically pressurized liquid in order to get to natural shale gas, petroleum and brine. The process can be profitable for landowners who are atop these zones, but others contend it leads to unsafe drinking water and air. Wildcat Minerals’ proppant is used during this gas extraction process.

"We’ve been around since 2007 and we’ve become the nation’s largest independently owned and operated distribution network for transloading in unconventional basins," Herron said. "We also offer logistics services and inventory management … anything dealing with fracking."

Proppant may be a new term to many readers but it’s one that should become familiar in coming years. According to Samir Nangia of PacWest Consulting Partners, there is a huge demand for it.

"Proppant demand is expected to grow 23 percent through 2016, driven primarily by a 24 percent per-year gain in fracking sand purchases," Nangia said.

Not surprisingly, Ohio’s horizontal shale wells reached new marks in the second quarter of 2014. In fact, horizontal wells produced more gas in three months than all Ohio wells produced in 2012, proof further that fracking is on the rise.

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources (DNR) reports between April 1-June 30, 2014, Ohio’s horizontal shale wells produced nearly 2.5 million barrels of oil and 88.6 billion cubic feet of natural gas.

The DNR report lists 562 wells, 504 of which reported production results. Of those 504, the average amount of oil produced was 4,895 barrels. The average number of days in production was 67.

The highest-producing oil well was the Antero Resources "Myron" well in Noble County, at 78,309 barrels of oil in 91 days of production. The highest-producing natural gas well was the Half Drilling "Hercher North" well in Monroe County, at 1.4 billion cubic feet.