CARBO Ceramics (CRR) Says Sand is Effecting Sales Volumes, Notes Increased Competition

CARBO Ceramics Inc. (NYSE: CRR) today provided an update concerning marketplace conditions and related impact to sales volumes.

The Company is seeing a growing number of operators experiment with the use of more sand in their well completions. While sand demand is increasing, the Company believes the conductivity and production benefits of its ceramic proppant are needed in today's reservoirs. Nevertheless, these changes are adversely impacting the Company's sales volumes.

The Company has experienced increased price competition on ceramic proppant sales from both domestic and international manufacturers, especially in the Bakken.
Some of the Company's clients are encountering delays in their well completions. These delays will impact some sales that the Company expected to make in September 2014.
As a result, the Company currently expects that its third quarter 2014 ceramic proppant sales volumes will be similar to those sold in the first quarter of 2014.

President and Chief Executive Officer Gary Kolstad commented, "In an industry where we are only recovering approximately 5 percent of the oil in the shale plays, we believe there is a need for both our current and future production enhancement technologies. The fundamental technical reasons wells need fracture conductivity have not changed. As such, we are committed to moving forward with the technologies we have, and are developing, to increase the estimated ultimate recovery (EUR) of wells. This commitment includes the continued retrofit of a plant to enable production of KRYPTOSPHERE products.

"We plan to manage the current competitive pricing environment, caused by proppant oversupply, by focusing on sales volumes and introducing new technologies."

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