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171 comments on DrumBeat: September 13, 2007

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Moneyman on September 13, 2007 - 9:45am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

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.

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joule on September 13, 2007 - 12:12pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

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.)

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ResponsibleAccountable on September 13, 2007 - 1:03pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

it's a great idea though
--
All these memories will be lost in time
like tears in rain

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doug fir on September 13, 2007 - 1:57pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

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.

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SailDog on September 13, 2007 - 8:35pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Anybody worked out a date for Peak Sand?

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