 | This Week in Petroleum 9-12-07 | The Oil Drum | The Economics of Oil, Part II: Peak Oil and the Energy Supply Curve |  |
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Reminds me of a news story I read about Saudi Arabia importing sand. You'd think if there's one thing they'll never have to import, it's sand. But, as your trucker friend noted, it's the kind of sand.
Re: Sand to Saudi Arabia
I think I may have mentioned this on TOD quite some time ago. Circa 1971 I worked for a company that supplied water and wastewater treatment equipment. They had just won a big order from ARAMCO for sand filters to treat injection water. These filter require that the sand particles conform to a certain specified size range and uniformity (if the particles are too small, the filter plugs up too easily; if they are too large, the filtration effectiveness is impaired).
So, along with the order for the filters was an order for several hundred tons of properly graded filter sand. Evidently, at the time, the Saudis either didn't have the capability or the inclination to do sand particle size grading.
After that, our salesmen (no 'salespersons' at the time) used to brag that they were so good, they could sell sand to the Saudi Arabians.
A year or two back there was a shortage of sand for frac jobs in the Permian Basin. We had newly drilled wells sitting idle for months for lack of sand.And you are right, it had to be a very specific type of sand. One of our engineers was very passionate that we not accept substitutes the vendors had offered up as solutions. He was a good engineer, and I trusted his judgement, but until then I never thought of sand as a potential constraint to oil and gas operations.
While on the subject of sand, it is almost universally assumed that sand is essentially infinitely abundant. It is not. There are many regions of the country with little usable sand, thus requiring sand to be shipped in from other regions. If you are not near a seashore or an area with readily accessible alluvial deposits, chances are sand is probably not too plentiful in your area.
I discovered this fact sort of accidently a number of years ago while playing around with an invention to rapidly fill large fabric sand 'sausages' for emergency flood control, following the severe 1993 floods in the US Midwest. Not all parts of the Midwest have ready access to large sand deposits. (Anyway, due to potential patent problems, I chose not to pursue this idea any further. The next time there is a major flood, you will still see people manually filling sandbags, one by one, which is pretty absurb if you really think about it.)
it's a great idea though
--
All these memories will be lost in time
like tears in rain
More sand. After the local molybdenum mine shut to overseas competition, a sand outfit took up with expensive white sand for golf courses, private beaches. Priorities; it's trucked.
Anybody worked out a date for Peak Sand?