You find U.S. Silica plants in Ottawa and a dozen other U.S. locations.
But starting Wednesday you also can find it on the New York Stock Exchange with the listing symbol of SLCA.
The initial public offering by U.S. Silica Holdings was 11,764,705 shares of common stock at a price of $17 per share.
The company announced it expects to receive net proceeds of approximately $42.5 million from the offering and intends to use approximately $34.5 million to fund future capital expenditures for its business, including the construction of its new resin-coating facility.
U.S. Silica Holdings, a Delaware corporation headquartered in Frederick, Md., is the second-largest domestic producer of commercial silica used for a variety of industrial and specialty products end markets.
During its 111-year history, U.S. Silica Holdings has focused on mining, processing, logistics and materials science that enable it to produce and deliver more than 200 products.
U.S. Silica's Ottawa plant is North America's largest silica production facility, mining fine grain, nearly pure quartz sandstone from the location's St. Peter sandstone deposits.
Ground and unground silica products from the Ottawa facility have a wide variety of applications, including glass production of all kinds, foundry and refractory sand, abrasives, polishes, paint and other fillers, filtration sand, frac sand and cement testing sands.
Silica sand mining began in Ottawa in the 1860s. At that time in Ottawa, glass manufacturing was one of the most important industries and the silica sand and glass manufacturing businesses grew simultaneously.
The Ottawa facility with an office at 701 Boyce Memorial Drive became part of U.S. Silica in 1987 and has a production rate of 2.2 million tons of silica annually.
2012年2月2日星期四
2012年1月3日星期二
The new art of graffiti using felt pens
The illicit art of writing on walls is becoming modernised. Once it was easy to rub out the "Sid Loves Ethel" – or worse – chalked up on the bus shelters and lamp-posts and other amenities of our towns and cities.
Now two factors have combined to give wall literature a permanence which, if not Shakespearean, is at least equal to the local authorities' determination to remove it. Designers of the rebuilt cities have taken to smooth, highly receptive surfaces such as plastic, terrazzo, high-finish concrete and mosaic – and the secret bards have taken to felt-tipped pens – which are more indelible than chalk, pencil, or crayon.
The Precinct, the centre of Coventry's rebuilt city centre, has steadily become a literary anthology and art gallery in this way. The subways, faced on both sides with terrazzo, have proved especially tempting. Felt-tipped pens left behind a legacy that had to be scrubbed off with abrasives doing the surfaces no good at all. Following this, the walls were deliberately coated with advertisements – only for the nubile young ladies pictured on them to acquire unlikely beards, pince-nez, and warts.
The nature of many of the sentiments expressed on public property has suggested that people between the ages of 15 and 22, rather than schoolchildren, are principally responsible. All the same, the local authority had to start somewhere, and the education committee has discussed the matter.
Councillor N.P. Lister, vice-chairman of the committee, says: "It was all very well for a courting couple years ago to spend a whole afternoon carving 'Jack Loves Judith' on a tree. It took them a long time and the marks grew out anyway. With a felt pen on some of these new surfaces you can do lot of damage in a few minutes and nothing will wash it out."
The short-term answer, in the opinion of the committee, is to make the culprits feel that there is no future in their particular art form. "The marks should be scrubbed out immediately, so no one thinks he is leaving a monument to posterity behind him," says Mr Lister. This solution is rather Utopian, as it is estimated that it would need a gang of half a dozen men working full-time for a week, to clear up the present crop of outpourings in Coventry.
The long-term solution lies in the education of the young. Here Coventry is leading the way. The Education Committee is to ask the Head Teachers' Association to consider the possibility of making a film about the wayward art of the wall literati. This would be the first film of its type. "I should think the censors would have to give it an X certificate," said a corporation workman sadly.
Now two factors have combined to give wall literature a permanence which, if not Shakespearean, is at least equal to the local authorities' determination to remove it. Designers of the rebuilt cities have taken to smooth, highly receptive surfaces such as plastic, terrazzo, high-finish concrete and mosaic – and the secret bards have taken to felt-tipped pens – which are more indelible than chalk, pencil, or crayon.
The Precinct, the centre of Coventry's rebuilt city centre, has steadily become a literary anthology and art gallery in this way. The subways, faced on both sides with terrazzo, have proved especially tempting. Felt-tipped pens left behind a legacy that had to be scrubbed off with abrasives doing the surfaces no good at all. Following this, the walls were deliberately coated with advertisements – only for the nubile young ladies pictured on them to acquire unlikely beards, pince-nez, and warts.
The nature of many of the sentiments expressed on public property has suggested that people between the ages of 15 and 22, rather than schoolchildren, are principally responsible. All the same, the local authority had to start somewhere, and the education committee has discussed the matter.
Councillor N.P. Lister, vice-chairman of the committee, says: "It was all very well for a courting couple years ago to spend a whole afternoon carving 'Jack Loves Judith' on a tree. It took them a long time and the marks grew out anyway. With a felt pen on some of these new surfaces you can do lot of damage in a few minutes and nothing will wash it out."
The short-term answer, in the opinion of the committee, is to make the culprits feel that there is no future in their particular art form. "The marks should be scrubbed out immediately, so no one thinks he is leaving a monument to posterity behind him," says Mr Lister. This solution is rather Utopian, as it is estimated that it would need a gang of half a dozen men working full-time for a week, to clear up the present crop of outpourings in Coventry.
The long-term solution lies in the education of the young. Here Coventry is leading the way. The Education Committee is to ask the Head Teachers' Association to consider the possibility of making a film about the wayward art of the wall literati. This would be the first film of its type. "I should think the censors would have to give it an X certificate," said a corporation workman sadly.
2011年10月8日星期六
Rescue team honored for heroism
Three Goodwill firefighters and the chief of the company's rescue operation were honored Wednesday night for the role they played in a "once-in-a-lifetime" rescue operation that began after two men fell through a hole that opened up in a roof being repaired at The Hill School last year.
Firefighters Terry Bechtel, Matt Burfete and William Smale Jr. were presented with Exceptional Duty Awards and Kevin Yerger, chief of Fire Rescue Operations for Goodwill Fire Company was presented with a plaque for his leadership during that operation.
It was a day with beautiful blue sky when the emergency call went out Nov. 1, 2010,
for two men who had fallen through the roof of The Hill School power plant.
"What units found when they arrived was nearly unthinkable," Yerger wrote in a Jan. 24 letter to Pottstown Fire Chief Richard Lengel, nominating the three members of his team for recognition.
"First, crews ascended a 40-foot tall utility ladder" that led to a platform where a conveyor belt, once used to carry coal into a coal hopper suspended about 30 feet in the air, was located.
The hopper was once used to fuel a furnace which provided heat and steam for other Hill School buildings but was no longer in use.
About 20 feet wide, 60 feet long and 18 feet deep, the hopper was where the crews found Kevin Sensenig, vice president of the R. L. Sensenig Co. of Ephrata, who had fallen through a hole that had opened up in the roof his company was there to repair.
The other victim, a worker who was wearing a safety harness, had fallen half the 35-foot distance from the roof into the hopper and was "standing on an 8-inch wide, deteriorating steel beam," according to Yerger's letter.
"He was in extreme pain and was not able to perform any type of self-rescue efforts," Yerger wrote.
Smale "crawled on an extension ladder" and then "along the beam to the victim and managed to get himself in a standing position next to the victim. While balancing on the beam, he was able to get one of our harnesses onto the victim," Yerger wrote.
Bechtel and Burfete "devised a system and lowered both firefighter Smale and the victim to the floor where advanced life support and emergency medical service treatment could be initiated," he wrote.
Sensenig's body was extracted by putting it into a "Stokes basket" and "using the crane system that the roofing company had in place to lift the victim through the collapsed section of roof and out of the building and down to the street."
Smale "climbed where few others would go" and Bechtel "remained at the side of the victim during the extrication and despite his own fear of heights, assured and reassured the victim that he would be OK," Yerger wrote.
"This call was 'the big one.' It is the one that we all train for and hope will never happen and after the call," Yerger wrote, "it was agreed upon that this was a once-in-a-lifetime experience."
In an e-mail to The Mercury, Yerger was quick to point out that the success of the operation was due to many others as well.
The rescue "was a combined effort of the Pottstown Fire Department, Pottstown Police Department and Goodwill Ambulance."
"Every one of these operations has a few people who end up being the heart of the operation. This could be a person on the nozzle of the hose at the scene of a fire, the person who uses the hydraulic tool at the scene of a vehicle extrication or the guy who gets to accompany the victim during his 100-foot high ride out a three-story high coal bin," Yerger wrote.
Those honored Wednesday "stood out as stars that day and never at any point did I doubt their skills, their responsibilities of the job at hand," he wrote The Mercury.
"Through their expertise and professionalism, (Sensenig) was recovered in a very dignified manner," Lengel said when presenting the awards Wednesday during a meeting of Pottstown Borough Council.
Their conduct, Lengel said, "reflected very greatly on themselves and the department in their expertise, their knowledge and their ability to function under pressure."
With the exception of Life Safety Awards, the Exceptional Duty Awards for the Pottstown Fire Department are given out, if at all, only once a year in conjunction with Fire Prevention Week, which begins tomorrow.
Yerger's Jan. 24 nomination of Burfete, Smale and Bechtel was taken to the Borough Fire Committee, made up of the fire officers of each of the four fire companies in Pottstown.
It was their decision to present the award.
In a post on The Mercury's Facebook page, Smale explained that Yerger's plaque was presented to recognize "his outstanding leadership during The Hill School technical rescue operation."
Firefighters Terry Bechtel, Matt Burfete and William Smale Jr. were presented with Exceptional Duty Awards and Kevin Yerger, chief of Fire Rescue Operations for Goodwill Fire Company was presented with a plaque for his leadership during that operation.
It was a day with beautiful blue sky when the emergency call went out Nov. 1, 2010,
for two men who had fallen through the roof of The Hill School power plant.
"What units found when they arrived was nearly unthinkable," Yerger wrote in a Jan. 24 letter to Pottstown Fire Chief Richard Lengel, nominating the three members of his team for recognition.
"First, crews ascended a 40-foot tall utility ladder" that led to a platform where a conveyor belt, once used to carry coal into a coal hopper suspended about 30 feet in the air, was located.
The hopper was once used to fuel a furnace which provided heat and steam for other Hill School buildings but was no longer in use.
About 20 feet wide, 60 feet long and 18 feet deep, the hopper was where the crews found Kevin Sensenig, vice president of the R. L. Sensenig Co. of Ephrata, who had fallen through a hole that had opened up in the roof his company was there to repair.
The other victim, a worker who was wearing a safety harness, had fallen half the 35-foot distance from the roof into the hopper and was "standing on an 8-inch wide, deteriorating steel beam," according to Yerger's letter.
"He was in extreme pain and was not able to perform any type of self-rescue efforts," Yerger wrote.
Smale "crawled on an extension ladder" and then "along the beam to the victim and managed to get himself in a standing position next to the victim. While balancing on the beam, he was able to get one of our harnesses onto the victim," Yerger wrote.
Bechtel and Burfete "devised a system and lowered both firefighter Smale and the victim to the floor where advanced life support and emergency medical service treatment could be initiated," he wrote.
Sensenig's body was extracted by putting it into a "Stokes basket" and "using the crane system that the roofing company had in place to lift the victim through the collapsed section of roof and out of the building and down to the street."
Smale "climbed where few others would go" and Bechtel "remained at the side of the victim during the extrication and despite his own fear of heights, assured and reassured the victim that he would be OK," Yerger wrote.
"This call was 'the big one.' It is the one that we all train for and hope will never happen and after the call," Yerger wrote, "it was agreed upon that this was a once-in-a-lifetime experience."
In an e-mail to The Mercury, Yerger was quick to point out that the success of the operation was due to many others as well.
The rescue "was a combined effort of the Pottstown Fire Department, Pottstown Police Department and Goodwill Ambulance."
"Every one of these operations has a few people who end up being the heart of the operation. This could be a person on the nozzle of the hose at the scene of a fire, the person who uses the hydraulic tool at the scene of a vehicle extrication or the guy who gets to accompany the victim during his 100-foot high ride out a three-story high coal bin," Yerger wrote.
Those honored Wednesday "stood out as stars that day and never at any point did I doubt their skills, their responsibilities of the job at hand," he wrote The Mercury.
"Through their expertise and professionalism, (Sensenig) was recovered in a very dignified manner," Lengel said when presenting the awards Wednesday during a meeting of Pottstown Borough Council.
Their conduct, Lengel said, "reflected very greatly on themselves and the department in their expertise, their knowledge and their ability to function under pressure."
With the exception of Life Safety Awards, the Exceptional Duty Awards for the Pottstown Fire Department are given out, if at all, only once a year in conjunction with Fire Prevention Week, which begins tomorrow.
Yerger's Jan. 24 nomination of Burfete, Smale and Bechtel was taken to the Borough Fire Committee, made up of the fire officers of each of the four fire companies in Pottstown.
It was their decision to present the award.
In a post on The Mercury's Facebook page, Smale explained that Yerger's plaque was presented to recognize "his outstanding leadership during The Hill School technical rescue operation."
2011年4月28日星期四
Testing under pressure: recognising the dangers of hydraulics
The dangers that come with fluids under high pressures are well known.
The risk of workplaces injuries and recent fatalities in longwall scenarios related to contact with fluid under high pressure has only highlighted the dangers.
High pressure fluids or oil in hydraulic systems can be lethal if a fluid line connection point is opened or a hose failure occurs.
Unlike electrical energy and testing procedures, there has never previously been a non invasive pressure detection device that could test whether a hose, tube or pipe is under unreasonable pressure.
In a project funded by the Australian Coal Association Research Program (ACARP), Custom Fluidpower has developed a handheld non invasive fluid detection device.
Started in 2007, the company has finally created a working prototype.
“The principal use of the Portable Detection Device for Pressure in Hydraulic Hoses (PDD) is to inform an operator using the device on a hydraulic hose if there is high pressure or low pressure in the hose,” Custom Fluidpower engineer Liviu Schintee said
The device operates by applying a safe level of deformation to a hydraulic hose with a clamping device and measuring the deformation of this hose.
It then compares this deformation with data stored in its memory and issues a low pressure, high pressure or re-test notification
“This information is critical in performing isolation procedures in hydraulic circuits where is not possible to connect a pressure detecting device to measure the pressure in contact with the medium or hydraulic oil” he said.
In a complex hydraulic circuit with long lines not all the lines are provided with test points to allow pressure measurement.
“Potential application of this device is in performing the isolation procedure before servicing hydraulic hoses,” Custom Fluidpower sales sirector Neil Martin said
“Some hydraulic installations have stored hydraulic energy even if the installation is stopped.
“Disconnecting a hose under pressure can provoke injury by fluid injection. This hazard can generate a risk that cannot always be eliminated”.
Martin explained that by using the PDD, an operator can substitute the hazard of disconnecting a hose under high pressure with the risk of disconnecting the hose under low pressure.
This risk is more manageable and the risk of personal injury is lower” he said.
A second potential application is in identifying hoses under pressure in installations with long hose lines where the hoses are bundled and connected to different actuators or services.
This procedure will enable the technician to identify high pressure in hoses without unnecessary downtimes.
However, the PDD is not a substitute for existing safe work practices.
The risk of workplaces injuries and recent fatalities in longwall scenarios related to contact with fluid under high pressure has only highlighted the dangers.
High pressure fluids or oil in hydraulic systems can be lethal if a fluid line connection point is opened or a hose failure occurs.
Unlike electrical energy and testing procedures, there has never previously been a non invasive pressure detection device that could test whether a hose, tube or pipe is under unreasonable pressure.
In a project funded by the Australian Coal Association Research Program (ACARP), Custom Fluidpower has developed a handheld non invasive fluid detection device.
Started in 2007, the company has finally created a working prototype.
“The principal use of the Portable Detection Device for Pressure in Hydraulic Hoses (PDD) is to inform an operator using the device on a hydraulic hose if there is high pressure or low pressure in the hose,” Custom Fluidpower engineer Liviu Schintee said
The device operates by applying a safe level of deformation to a hydraulic hose with a clamping device and measuring the deformation of this hose.
It then compares this deformation with data stored in its memory and issues a low pressure, high pressure or re-test notification
“This information is critical in performing isolation procedures in hydraulic circuits where is not possible to connect a pressure detecting device to measure the pressure in contact with the medium or hydraulic oil” he said.
In a complex hydraulic circuit with long lines not all the lines are provided with test points to allow pressure measurement.
“Potential application of this device is in performing the isolation procedure before servicing hydraulic hoses,” Custom Fluidpower sales sirector Neil Martin said
“Some hydraulic installations have stored hydraulic energy even if the installation is stopped.
“Disconnecting a hose under pressure can provoke injury by fluid injection. This hazard can generate a risk that cannot always be eliminated”.
Martin explained that by using the PDD, an operator can substitute the hazard of disconnecting a hose under high pressure with the risk of disconnecting the hose under low pressure.
This risk is more manageable and the risk of personal injury is lower” he said.
A second potential application is in identifying hoses under pressure in installations with long hose lines where the hoses are bundled and connected to different actuators or services.
This procedure will enable the technician to identify high pressure in hoses without unnecessary downtimes.
However, the PDD is not a substitute for existing safe work practices.
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