Oilfield services giant Halliburton has responded to the
challenging logistical demands of frac sand supply by bringing
on stream the world’s largest dedicated frac sand transfer
terminal.
Halliburton recently opened its 40m
lb new sand storage and distribution plant located at Windsor,
Colorado, north of Denver. IM visited the site
just prior to its opening.
As Bruce McMichael explains in
“Frac sand logistics” (see p.36), the
logistics market for frac sand has been turned on its head
since 2010.
In fact, the US frac sand industry
is a logistics game. Hundreds of thousands of tonnes
of sand are having to be shifted from mines located primarily
in north-central US (Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Missouri,
and Texas), to fracking operations in the shale gas and shale
oil plays of the Bakken formation (Montana, North Dakota), the
Permian (west Texas), the Marcellus (Pennsylvania, New York),
and the Utica (Ohio).
Establishing adequate and strategic logistics infrastructure,
plus alliances with logistics providers such as railroad
companies, has become the market mantra and will dictate the
survival of the fittest in this increasingly competitive
market.
For major oilfield service
providers, such as Halliburton, which handle large tonnages of
oilfield minerals, it is essential to own and operate storage
and distribution facilities to ensure consistent supply to
their customers.
Halliburton recognised the
increased demand for fracking in the Niobrara formation in
north-east Colorado (see map), particularly in the
Denver-Julesburg (DJ) Basin, and realised that the anticipated
volumes of incoming frac sand would require a much more
enhanced transfer facility than its existing
infrastructure.
Windsor frac sand terminal
Halliburton started building the
new storage terminal for frac sand in Windsor, Colorado, during
the first quarter of 2012. The terminal was built on 54 acres
(220,000m2) of the Great Western Industrial Park,
formerly on the site of Eastman Kodak Co.
Key to the location of the plant is
its spur railroad link to two of the largest US railroad
companies: Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) and Union
Pacific.
The plant utilises a
state-of-the-art system to discharge sand swiftly from 90-110
railcar unit trains to 10 storage silos each holding 4m lbs
sand, which in turn load sand trucks to deliver the proppant to
the drill pads in the Niobrara.
The plant enables two rail cars to
be discharged at the same time using two independent systems
each incorporating an underground pit beneath the rail track, a
wide hopper (40 s.tons) and bucket elevator to feed a set of
five 4m lbs silos at a rate of 650 tph sand (most other railcar
discharge facilities are 350 tph).
Sampling and analysis is conducted
pre-discharge which takes about 15 minutes. Railcar discharge
takes about six minutes, and about eight minutes to load a sand
truck.
The plant officially opened on 18
March 2013 and has been ramping up ever since. Joseph Powell,
Logistics Supervisor, Halliburton - Brighton Field Camp
Logistics, told IM: “The Halliburton
Windsor Sand Plant go-live went very well.”
The most popular sand grade at
present for the Niobrara is 20/40, with some 30/50, and 40/70,
with little resin coated sand used.
