It is longer than the width of Rhode Island, snakes across the oil fields of the southwest US and crawls at 16kph — too slow for a truck and too long for a train.
It is a new sight: the longest conveyor belt in the US.
Atlas Energy Solutions, a Texas-based oil field company, installed a 67km-long conveyor belt to transport millions of tonnes of sand for hydraulic fracturing. The belt the company named “The Dune Express” runs from tiny Kermit, Texas, and across state borders into Lea County, New Mexico. Tall and lanky with lids that resemble solar modules, the steel structure could almost be mistaken for a roller coaster.
Photo: AP
In remote West Texas, few people are around to marvel at the unusual machine in Kermit, a city with a population of fewer than 6,000, where the sand is typically hauled by tractor trailers. During fracking, liquid is pumped into the ground at a high pressure to create holes, or fractures, that release oil. The sand helps keep the holes open as water, oil and gas flow through it.
Moving the sand by truck is usually a long and potentially dangerous process, Atlas energy CEO John Turner said.
Massive trucks moving sand and other industrial goods are a common site in the oil-rich Permian Basin and pose a danger to other drivers, he said.
Photo: AP
“Pretty early on, the delivery of sand via truck was not only inefficient, it was dangerous,” he said.
The conveyor belt, with a freight capacity of 11.79 tonnes, was designed to bypass and trudge alongside traffic.
Innovation is not new to the oil and gas industry, nor is the idea to use a conveyor belt to move materials around. Another conveyor belt believed to be the world’s longest conveyor — at 98.17km — carries phosphorous from a mine in Western Sahara on the northwest coast of Africa, according to NASA Earth Observatory.
Photo: AP
When moving sand by truck became a nuisance, an unprecedented and risky investment opportunity arose: constructing a US$400 million machine to streamline the production of hydraulic fracturing.
The company went public in March 2023, in part, to help pay for the conveyor belt and completed its first delivery in January, Turner said.
The sand sits in a tray-shaped pan with a lid that can be removed at any point, but most of it gets offloaded into silos near the Texas and New Mexico border. Along its kilometers-long journey, the sand is sold and sent to fracking companies who move it by truck for the remainder of the trip.
Keeping the rollers on the belt aligned and making sure it runs smoothly are the biggest maintenance obstacles, Turner said.
The rollers are equipped with chips that signal when it is about to fail and need to be replaced, which helps prevent wear and tear and keep the machine running consistently, he said.
The belt cuts through a large oil patch where environmentalists have long raised concerns about the industry disturbing local habitats, including those of the sagebrush lizard, which was listed as an endangered species last year by the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
“In addition to that, we know that the sand will expedite further drilling nearby,” Environment Texas executive director Luke Metzger said. “We could see more drilling than we otherwise would, which means more air pollution, more spills than we otherwise would.”
The Dune Express runs for about 12 to 14 hours a day at about half capacity, but the company expects it to be rolling along at all hours later this year.
In New Mexico, Lea County Commissioner Brad Weber said he hopes the belt alleviates traffic on a parallel highway where vehicle crashes are frequent.
“I believe it’s going to make a very positive impact here,” he said.
Merida Industry Co (美利達) has seen signs of recovery in the US and European markets this year, as customers are gradually depleting their inventories, the bicycle maker told shareholders yesterday. Given robust growth in new orders at its Taiwanese factory, coupled with its subsidiaries’ improving performance, Merida said it remains confident about the bicycle market’s prospects and expects steady growth in its core business this year. CAUTION ON CHINA However, the company must handle the Chinese market with great caution, as sales of road bikes there have declined significantly, affecting its revenue and profitability, Merida said in a statement, adding that it would
i Gasoline and diesel prices at fuel stations are this week to rise NT$0.1 per liter, as tensions in the Middle East pushed crude oil prices higher last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. International crude oil prices last week rose for the third consecutive week due to an escalating conflict between Israel and Iran, as the market is concerned that the situation in the Middle East might affect crude oil supply, CPC and Formosa said in separate statements. Front-month Brent crude oil futures — the international oil benchmark — rose 3.75 percent to settle at US$77.01
RISING: Strong exports, and life insurance companies’ efforts to manage currency risks indicates the NT dollar would eventually pass the 29 level, an expert said The New Taiwan dollar yesterday rallied to its strongest in three years amid inflows to the nation’s stock market and broad-based weakness in the US dollar. Exporter sales of the US currency and a repatriation of funds from local asset managers also played a role, said two traders, who asked not to be identified as they were not authorized to speak publicly. State-owned banks were seen buying the greenback yesterday, but only at a moderate scale, the traders said. The local currency gained 0.77 percent, outperforming almost all of its Asian peers, to close at NT$29.165 per US dollar in Taipei trading yesterday. The
RECORD LOW: Global firms’ increased inventories, tariff disputes not yet impacting Taiwan and new graduates not yet entering the market contributed to the decrease Taiwan’s unemployment rate last month dropped to 3.3 percent, the lowest for the month in 25 years, as strong exports and resilient domestic demand boosted hiring across various sectors, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. After seasonal adjustments, the jobless rate eased to 3.34 percent, the best performance in 24 years, suggesting a stable labor market, although a mild increase is expected with the graduation season from this month through August, the statistics agency said. “Potential shocks from tariff disputes between the US and China have yet to affect Taiwan’s job market,” Census Department Deputy Director Tan Wen-ling
RSS