Kermet, Texas (AP) – It is longer than Rod Island’s offer, snakes across the oil fields in the southwest of the United States and crawl at a speed of 10 miles per hour – very slow for the truck and its length for the train.
It is a new scene: the longest conveyor belt in America.
Atlas Energy Solutions, a Texas -based oil field company, has installed a 42 -mile transmitted belt (67 km) to transport millions of tons of sand for hydraulic cracking. The belt called “The Dune Express” extends from Tiny Kermit, Texas, and through the borders of the state to Lea County, New Mexico. Long tall with solar unit -like covers, the structure of steel can be almost wrong in the rotating ship.
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In the remote West Texas, there are a few people to wonder the unusual machine in Kermet, a city with a population of less than 6000, where the sand is usually transported by tractor. During the cracking, the liquid is pumped into the ground when high pressure to create holes, or fractures, which release the oil. The sand helps to keep holes when water, oil and gas flow through them.
But moving the sand with the truck is usually a long and perhaps dangerous process, according to CEO John Turner. He said that huge trucks move sand and other industrial goods are a common location in the oil -rich pink basin and pose a threat to other drivers.
“It was very early, the delivery of the sand through the truck was not only effective, but it was dangerous,” he said.
The transport belt, with a charging capacity of 13 tons (11.79 metric tons), is designed to overcome and move alongside traffic.
Innovation is not new in the oil and gas industry, nor the idea of using a conveyor belt to transport materials around it. Another conveyor belt is believed to be the longest carrier in the world – 61 miles (98.17 km) – phosphorous from a mine in the Western Sahara on the northwestern coast of Africa, according to the Earth Observatory in NASA.
When the truck is moved, it became a source of inconvenience, an unprecedented and risky investment opportunity arose: building a 400 million dollar machine to simplify the production of hydraulic cracking. Turner said that the company was publicly published in March 2023, to help pay the price of the transport belt and completed its first delivery in January.
The sand is located in a frying pan in the form of a box with a cover that can be removed at any time, but most of them are emptied in silos near Texas and New Mexico. Along its long journey, the sand is sold and sent to the advanced companies that move it through the truck for the rest of the trip.
Maintaining alignment on the belt and ensuring that it works smoothly is the largest obstacles to maintenance, according to Turner. The rollers are equipped with chips that indicate when they are about to fail and need to be replaced. Terner said this helps to prevent corrosion and tears and keep the machine constantly running.
The belt penetrates through a large oil patch where environmental protection advocates have long raised concerns about the industry that disturbs local habitats, including those in the Sagebrush lizard, which has been included as a species threatened with extinction by American fish and wildlife service.
“In addition, we know that the sand will record more pits nearby,” said Texas. “We can see more drilling than we were doing, which means more air pollution, and more spills than we were doing.”
Dune Express currently runs between 12 and 14 hours a day in about half of the capacity, but the company expects to roll later this year.
In New Mexico, Lea Brad Weber County Commissioner said he hoped to reduce the belt on a parallel highway where car accidents are repeated.
“I think it will have a very positive effect here,” he said.
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Lattin mentioned from Austin, Texas.
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Athan is a member of the Associated Press Corps/report of America’s news. Report on America It is a non -profit national service program that places journalists in local news rooms to report secret issues.
