WASHINGTON—As the coronavirus pandemic and low oil prices walloped U.S. frackers this spring, Texas billionaires Dan and Farris Wilks got a $35 million relief loan to help one of their fracking companies stay afloat. At the same time, they were on a buying spree in the country’s oil patch.
Since spring, businesses controlled by the Wilks brothers have hunted for deals among fracking firms going through bankruptcy and taken or increased stakes in at least six other companies, corporate filings show. But when it looked like the oil-and-gas industry would be shut out of a key pandemic lending program, they and others in the industry turned their attention to Washington, making an appeal for help in meetings with home-state senator Ted Cruz.
The twin dynamics of acquisitions and government rescue show how the economic tumult caused by the pandemic has reshaped the landscape for a key U.S. industry. One result: The Wilkses have expanded their presence in a still-youthful industry where they first invested in 2002, soon to become billionaires as fracking flourished.
But the industry was already under pressure from international competition and a sagging oil price by the time the pandemic hit, and its mounting woes prompted the Wilkses and others to turn to allies in Washington, including Mr. Cruz. The Republican senator helped convince the Trump administration and the Federal Reserve to change the rules for pandemic loans to ensure oil and gas firms could participate.
Soon after the U.S. government changed the rules of its lending program in April, a Wilks family company, ProFrac Holdings LLC, applied for and received a $35 million loan, federal records show. ProFrac, a supplier of pumping equipment and services, is just one slice of the sprawling portfolio of fracking businesses that the Wilks family owns in part or outright across the American West and Canada.
That’s frogging appalling
Ted Cruz who doesn't want the American people to have any stimulus money Got news for him...EVERYTHING BELONGS TO GOD...INCLUDING his money and all those billionaires that don't care about the rest of us. Can't freaking believe how greedy people can be
Looks like Ted is the one the media is afraid of for the next election.
Inevitable that with the huge amounts involved , one day donors come in and want a return favor for their donation to your campaign...in most countries this a regarded as corruption, except US.
Lock him up!
Do they need loan to create jobs ?
⚡️ Sunday, December 28, 2020 ⏲️ 12:06 EST 🚨 Republicans / GOP CONTROL the Senate 🚨 Donald J. Trump in the White House 🔥🇺🇸 COVID19 in the United States: 🔥🇺🇸 U.S. DEATHS = 341,138 🔥🇺🇸 U.S. INFECTIONS = 19,573,847 🖥️ | CDCgov
tedcruz might as well be a phony televangelist.
viewfinder007 Oklahoma is sick & Tired of all the Earthquakes brought on by Fracking!
viewfinder007 Ted Cruz needs to Leave Politics! He has lied so bad & is really not behind The American People! Shame on you! You need to get out Now!
Any Senator with an ounce of integrity would have told 2 billionaires to go fuck themselves and shamed them right of of his office or off the phone for trying to take funds targeted for 'at risk' main street businesses in a national crisis. But not slimy smarmy Ted Cruz!
This is stupid things get
.tedcruz embarrassing Texas Every. Damn. Day.
Just goes to show, we are a balance of good and evil. Ted speaks rightly about tech companies having too much power but then uses his power to help out fracking companies.
Adrienne Santos confirmed SEC_Enforcement destroyed documentation related to Automobile companies changing dealer names & void 24-36 month parts warranties to cover up AccountingFraud. TaxEvasion IRS_CI Destroyed records 2020-007235 TIGTA TRN-2009-0433 & TRN-2010-0201
I thought your people were going to drain the swamp.
Good. They have to have the capital to keep their employees. This liberal propaganda against patriotic job creators must end.
Cruz is just another trumpeteer who needs removed from office....he's corrupt like his hero Dictator trumpieboy.
Now do George Soros, or any Chinese company located in America after democrat congressmen and women weighed in...
yall might as well set fire to the $35million. Fracking is a debt inducing industry. Its makes no fiscal sense.
Bold & brilliant...
Well that's fracking ridiculous & tedcruz is fracking corrupt. Seriously, frack Ted Cruz in the ass. Wait...no... he'd love that. TedCruzHasNoBalls