Posts Tagged ‘Raw material’

The Marcellus drilling transport system is a complex maze of independent businesses that work together so an efficient and reliable service can be realized by the energy industry. The benefit to the American consumer is lower energy price they will pay for the natural gas that is used in the homes and at the gas pumps.

The reason a specialized system is needed for the Marcellus shale rock basin is the number of wells located there. Unlike regular industrial business ventures, the drilling of wells requires a company to have many different locations. For this they need to set up a supply chain to provide the required raw materials needed at each well.

Fortunately for the wells being drilled in the Marcellus basin, the energy reservoirs are known to exist there. This allows for each well that is drilled to be productive. It is the nature of the shale rock layer that makes this possible. What is limited is the amount of natural gas and oil that can be extracted from each of these wells.

To supply the needs of each well the use of the railroad transit system is used. This is the lowest price and most efficient means to transport the raw materials required of each well site to an area near their location. On the rail lines there are transloading stations strategically located in areas about 600 miles apart from each other.

The reason the transloading stations are 600 miles apart is because one station can send out tractor trailers loaded with bulk material for a radius of 300 miles in a one day trip. This permits each load to be taken off the rail car and delivered to the site where it was ordered in less than a day.

The transloading stations are independent businesses that specialize in the offloading of raw materials from railcars to tractor trailers. One example of their expertise is with frac sand. This raw material is ordered by the railcar load. A transloading station that is operating efficiently can offload the frac sand from one rail car to the awaiting five tractor trailers in one hour. This is done with a dedicated conveyor. The more conveyors a transloading station has, the greater number of railcars that can be offloaded per hour.

This same delivery mechanism is also used for the transport of drilling rods and piping, water and all other bulk material needed by the energy companies at their well sites. This efficient means of Marcellus drilling transport mechanism is why the energy being extracted from this basin is arriving at such a low cost despite the added effort to recover the natural gas and oil from beneath the ground.

Related articles

• Marcellus Shale Natural Gas (transloading.org)
• Frac Sand Transportation (transloading.org)
• A Frac Sand Loading Facility: and Why We Need Them (transloading.org)

Transloading Facilities

The availability of transloading facilities is limited to areas of the country where industry has a need for bulk material being delivered. This type of business is not something most American consumers are aware of or even that they exist but benefit from their services by the lower prices they enjoy on many items they use.

One of the places this cost savings is enjoyed is at the gas pump. By the transloading stations being placed near the oil and gas wells, the raw materials can be delivered to the wells for a lower cost with a reduction in the chances of it becoming contaminated or damage while in transport.

The cost savings is also realized in the American home with lower natural gas prices. This is especially true with the contribution of the transloading facilities on and near the Marcellus Shale rock deposit in the northeastern portion of the nation. These facilities are located in many of these states where there are active natural gas wells being explored.

Bulk Materials Transloading Facilities

The types of raw materials that these transloading stations handle include frac sand, water, piping surfactants and other items that are used on natural gas recovery sites. The reason these stations are so needed is because of the specific tasks they perform.

It is the responsibility of each transloading facility to transfer the raw materials from the rail cars to a waiting tractor trailers in the safest and most efficient manner while reducing or eliminating any possibility of contamination. This is possible because these stations are dedicated to handling these bulk items and do this on a regular basis.

The transfer of frac sand is the best example of this. At a transloading facility there are conveyers that take the frac sand from the rail cars and dump it into the tractor trailers. The conveyors are dedicated for this purpose so the frac sand does not become contaminated. One conveyor can transfer the contents of one rail car into 5 tractor trailers in about an hour.

With the use of 5 conveyors, 5 rail cars can be unloaded per hour reaching a total of 120 in a 24 hour period. This is important since the first 24 hours a rail car is at its final destination has a demurrage charge of $0.  After that point, there is a charge per rail car per hour it is idle. By being able to handle this type of bulk material in an efficient manner, the charges for transporting the material are kept to a minimum.

This is just one example how transloading facilities are helping to keep energy prices low. This then makes a contribution to helping the American consumer spend less on their energy needs so they can use their revenue on other necessary items around their home.

Related articles

• Shale Gas Fracking (transloading.org)
• Frac Sand Transportation (transloading.org)
• A Frac Sand Loading Facility: and Why We Need Them (transloading.org)

A Frac Sand Loading Facility is in business to handle the bulk transfer of this necessary commodity so the energy industry can have an amble supply of their needed material. This area of business has taken a hit during the recent economi9c downturn, but not for the same reason most other business have.

The reason the frac sand transfer facilities or transloading terminals have had a downturn in business is the controversy over the use of hydrofracking of energy wells. With many wells not being able to use the hydrofracking technology to help them extract the needed energy resources from the ground, the need for the raw material in this process has dropped off.

Unfortunately for the transloading facilities, the movement and transferring of bulk material from rail cars to tractor trailers is the only reason they exist. They have little choice of who their clients are and the business they are in because of the nature of the industry.

The transloading facilties were strategically placed to reduce the cost of transporting raw materials to the oil and natural gas wells across America including the Marcellus Shale region in the north eastern portion of the nation. These facilities have been an intricate part of helping to keep the cost of domestic natural gas and oil down over the years.

As special interest groups and politicians have become involved in the hampering the oil and natural gas exploration fields of industry, these businesses are starting to experience economic hardship.  These facilities specialize in the quick and efficient loading and offloading of rail cars so the rail lines of the nation are not bogged down by less efficient means of off loading the rail cars.

Hydrofracking has been used as a productive technology to extract the maximum amount of oil and natural gas for expositing wells for over a century. In the shale rock formations, this technology is the only known means to extract the energy reserves from the ground. Without hydrofracking, the nation will have to again be more reliant on foreign oil and natural gas imports to supply the daily demands of the economy.

While all concerns of the American citizens should be addressed, moratoriums on technologies that have been in use for long periods of time should not occur just so the answers of a few can be determined. Work stoppages because of facts are warranted. Work stoppages because of fears are unwarranted and should be avoided in order to keep the economy moving in the right direction.

Related articles

• Frac Sand Transportation (transloading.org)
• Marcellus Shale Fracking for Natural Gas (transloading.org)
• Hydrofracking Advantages (transloading.org)

The Marcellus shale drilling has been going on for nearly a decade now with a positive recovery of natural gas and oil. These energy reserves are helping, in part, to supply the American public with its high demand of fuel needs that are being used to help generate revenue streams for the area.

The positive economic impact of the wells that are tapping into this energy deposit is larger than most realize. This includes all the supplies that are needed to extract the natural gas and oil. The only raw material that can be found locally is water. All of the rest have to be brought in from other parts of the country.

The list of raw materials needed to recover the energy reserves is vast. This includes all the piping, machinery, frac sand, and containers, along with the means in which to transport all of the supplies.

In America, the transportation system is already established that makes this moving of large and bulk items essentially easy.  This includes the vast fleets of tractor trailers and the roads that they use to transport the goods to their final destination. The railroads are another part of this all important transportation system that is widely used.

The railroads are how the large and bulk items are transported close to their final destination. They arrive at the transloading station where the material is offloaded to waiting tractor trailers for the final part of the journey. These transloading stations are strategically positioned near the area that has the largest demand for bulk items.

With all of these involved with Marcellus shale drilling, it is beneficial to the local economy and the nation as a whole providing jobs, revenue streams and energy reserves that are made available by the energy businesses.

The sponsor of this blog is TRAN-Z a company that owns short line railroads that haul bulk materials out of quarries and sand and gravel plants, as well as serve as interconnecting lines to frac sand suppliers for the Marcellus Shale Drilling industry.  They build transloading stations to accommodate the needs of contractors that work in the gas drilling business.

If you have any questions or comments we invite you to leave them as comments below the blog posts, or to use the Contact form at the top of the page to inquire about any of your specific needs.

Related articles

• Marcellus Shale Fracking for Natural Gas (transloading.org)
• Marcellus Shale Fracking (transloading.org)
• Frac Sand Transportation (transloading.org)