Imagine a 42-mile long conveyor belt in west Texas and southeast New Mexico.
The $400 million project, the world’s second largest conveyor belt, was designed to haul hydraulic fracturing sand from a Texas facility to Permian Basin oil and gas operations in New Mexico.
Reporter Russell Gold of the Texas Monthly recently wrote about the belt that can carry 13 million tons of sand a year.
“This situation birthed the Dune Express, the massive conveyor belt that starts about ten miles northeast of the oil field outpost of Kermit and extends west by northwest into New Mexico. Austin-based Atlas Energy Solutions invested a king’s ransom in a fix that it believes will prove more profitable than trucking sand to customers. If it succeeds, it will have dug itself an economic moat against would-be competitors. If it fails, it will have to endure industry mockery for its seemingly Rube Goldbergian efforts,” wrote Gold.
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