The natural pressure of hydrocarbons
Historically, oil and gas companies relied on the natural pressure of hydrocarbons to push themselves to the surface once they're tapped.
But since the advent of hydraulic fracturing in recent years, the process has changed. High-pressure water is pumped into the ground to split rocks and release oil and gas, and sand is added to mix to help prop open the tiny cracks, allowing oil and gas to flow freely.
"If you didn't have the sand, it wouldn't work," said Billy Smith, Halliburton's senior director for North American operations.
The volume of sand required to make the process happen is enormous. Smith said just one well can use around 7 million pounds of sand, and some have used as much as 20 million pounds. That means the company is easily moving billions of pounds of sand in a year, and Halliburton leaders say that figure will likely rise. Company president Jeff Miller said during a conference call last month the average amount of sand it uses per well has increased more than 50 percent since last year.
"It's a lot of trucks," Tim Wesbey, Halliburton's North America director of logistics, said Tuesday at the center.
Wesbey said the company owns and leases so many tractor trailers - many of which are used to transport sand - that its fleet is comparable to that of major big box retailers.
A recent report by analysts at Raymond James & Associates said North America's sand consumption has increased 30-fold over the last decade, driven largely by hydraulic fracturing. It projected sand demand to reach 72 million tons by 2016. The quantity has increasingly made Halliburton, an oil field service company, equally focused on logistics.