Posts Tagged ‘transloading’

The railcar transloading business has been in America for well over 100 years. The first ones were created by providing a service to those that needed an economical and safe way of transferring bulk material from railcars to tractor trailers.

The idea of this can from big industry. Most large manufacturing plants have their own transloading stations on site at their facilities. They also had a rail line running to them so the delivery of bulk material by railcar could be made.

There was a need to provide this service to the smaller business man and for industries that had small locations located in many different areas of the country. This evoked the American entrepreneur spirit in the pioneers in the transloading business.

When a feasibility study was conducted, it was determined that the average tractor trailer could make a delivery of bulk items in a 300 mile radius of a transloading station in just one day. This is the area in which any transloading station could solicit business from their community. By placing a transloading station in an area of the country that had business which needed this type of service, the building of transloading stations commenced.

It all depends on what types of industry is located in any 300 mile radius of a centrally located station that will determine if this is a profitable business venture. In the Marcellus shale rock basin in the north eastern portion of America, this service is needed by the natural gas and oil exploration companies.

This is a very large industry but they have multiple sites located in thousands of places in this area. For this reason it would not be economically feasible to run a rail line to each production well. By using a transloading station located within 300 miles of their well, the delivery of bulk material, like frac sand can be more efficiently and at a reduced cost than doing it themselves.

This saves the energy exploration companies money by them not having to spend capital on rail lines, a facility for the off loading of the material, the equipment to make the transfer and the storage bins for the material. By utilizing the transloading stations for the transfer and then the trailers as the storage bins, the cost of drilling a well is done at a lower cost.

This same service of railcar transloading is also used by many smaller businesses that have the need for large scale bulk items so the transportation costs are manageable. This also makes use of professionals that only handle bulk transfers for this task can be done at the lowest possible cost in the fastest time frame possible.

Related articles

• Marcellus Drilling Transport (transloading.org)
• Transporting Sand for Natural Gas (transloading.org)
• Record Deliveries Signal Turnaround For This Railcar Maker (forbes.com)

Image by lennox_mcdough via Flickr

The process of transporting sand for natural gas extraction from the Marcellus shale rock basin is needed because of the fracking process that must occur. This fracking process is done by mixing water or a propane gel with frac sand and injecting this slurry into the energy well under pressure. The frac sands purpose is to keep the fissures open that are the result of the slurry fracturing the shale rock deposit.

To deliver the frac sand from the quarries where it is recovered, to the wells in the energy fields are a precise path of transportation that has been developed. Most of the larger quarries are on existing railroad lines. This makes the loading of the frac sand into rail cars easy and economically feasible.

This transporting of the frac sand by rail car has been done for nearly as long as the fracking process in energy wells has occurred. This frac sand along with many other bulk items are moved across America by rail because of the amount of load the rail cars can carry and the low price of doing it in this manner.

Unfortunately most of the natural gas and oil wells in need of the frac sand are not on existing rail lines. This is why the need for transloading stations came about. These stations have only one line of business. This is to safely and efficiently transfer the contents of bulk material from rail cars to awaiting tractor trailers so it can be delivered to its final destination.

The frac sand that is brought to the transloading stations can be transferred to delivery trucks at a rate of one rail car an hour per conveyor that is used. It takes five tractor trailers per rail car when this unloading process is being done. This is an important factor when conducting this type of business because of the demurrage charges.

The demurrage charge is what the railroad companies charge when one of their rail cars is idle for over a 24 hour period. By the energy companies using transloading stations that specialize in the transfer of frac sand and other bulk items, this added expense to the transportation cost of the raw materials can be avoided. This allows for a greater profit potential the companies using this service and allows them to lower their process.

The transporting sand for natural gas exploration and the use of the transloading stations is just one way the costs that are passed down to the American consumer are as low as possible.

Click HERE for more information on Transloading.

Related articles

• What Are Transloading Facilities (transloading.org)
• Frac Sand Transportation (transloading.org)
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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)

Why a Frac Sand Blog?

Having a Frac Sand Blog for transloading stations only makes common sense for those that know how closely related the two really are. Both the frac sand and the transloading stations are integral parts of the hydrofracking process that is necessary for the energy companies that are fracking in the Marcellus Shale region.

For those of you just learning about frac sand, this is a short summary of where it comes from, how it is transported and why it is so important to the natural gas and oil exploration companies.

Frac sand is the same silica based material you can find on most any beach around the world. The quarries where it is excavated from are from as far north in North America as the southern portions of Canada to the south in Texas. The difference between the two types of sand is more than just the appearance.

The northern frac sand is called Ottawa Sand is spherical in shape. It’s color is close to being white and the SiO2 concentration of the material is near 95%. The size of the sand particles varies from 12 to 270 on the Tyler mesh scale. Because of its spherical shape, many in the hydrofracking industry prefer to use it in their process thinking it can roll into the fissures farther and sustain the openings in the rock layers better.

The southerner sand is called Texas Brown Sand. This is what most people remember from being on the beach. It is irregularly shaped but its SiO2 content is higher than that of Ottawa being at 99%. Because of its irregular shape the perception is that it might be more permeable into the fissures than its Ottawa counterpart. This sand can be readily found in sizes from 8 to 100 on the Tyler mesh scale.

The preference in just which type of frac sand a manager at the energy well uses is a personal choice. What is known is that both do the same job and both are in use today in the natural gas and oil well hydrofracking process. These are the particles that fit into the fissures created by the fracking process that helps to release the trapped natural gas and oil.

After the sand is taken out of the ground at the quarries, it is run thru a set of sieves. It is the mess size on the sieves that separates the sand into the different sizes that are there. This is how it is purchased by the energy companies. Because this is a bulk material, it is transported by rail cars to a transloading station that is near it’s final destination. There the frac sand is professionally offloaded from the rail cars to tractor trailers for it final leg of its journey.

Now you know where frac sand comes from and why it is so important to the natural gas and oil exploration companies, particularly in the Marcellus Shale region.  I hope this frac sand blog has cleared up any questions on just what frac sand is.

Related articles

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

[Image courtesy flickr.com/Bengt]

The process of transloading frac sand is one of those types of transfers that go highly unnoticed unless there is a problem, or it takes too much time. What most people do not realize is that his is a critical step in the transportation of this vital commodity.

What is not apparent to most that observe this transfer of bulk material is that it has to remain as free of contamination as possible. This might be the same types of sand that is found on the beaches around the world, but it has a specific task that it will need to perform.

All frac sand that is in transported to the oil and natural gas fields in America are destined to perform an important task. This is to keep the fractures open during the hydrofracking and propane fracking procedures so the valuable energy reserve can be extracted at the well bore. Without this frac sand being present and free of contaminates, the fractures in the rock bed would not remain open allowing the recovery of the energy reserves to occur.

The reason contamination of the frac sand has to be kept at a minimum is to help prevent an unwanted reaction to occur so the intended task it is to perform can happen. It also allows the frac sand to be more efficient in performing its task.

To help minimize the contamination of the frac sand during the transloading of the material from the rail cars to the tractor trailers, a designated conveyor is used. In the stations that are equipped properly, there is more than just one. Ideally there should be a conveyor for each station that a railcar can be positioned into for unloading.

On average it takes 5 tractor trailers to transload just one rail car. The time it takes to do this one railcar is just over an hour’s time. Since the demurrage of each rail car is at no charge for the first 24 hours,  it is financially responsible for the transloading station to perform the transloading of the frac sand within this time to minimize the cost of transporting this commodity.

An average load of frac sand sent by rail car is upwards of 25 cars. For this reason it is fiscally responsible to have up to 5 different transloading stations to off load the frac sand to help minimize the cost of its transport. 5 stations will be able to transload the frac sand of 25 rail cars in 5 hours. This will not only reduce the time required for the transportation of the frac sand to its final destination, but help to minimize the cost of its transport.

Transloading frac sand is more complex than it first appears to the casual observer. This is ok since the operators of the transloading stations know the tasks they have to perform and why.

Related articles

• Transload Equipment for Bulk Sand (transloading.org)
• Railcar Sand Unloading (transloading.org)
• Why Use Sand with Fracking (transloading.org)

(Note: the image used above is of a transloading operation of a product that is not sand, however the process is quite similar.  Thanks to Bengt at flickr.com for calling my attention to this and thanks also for the use of the image.  Rich Hill admin.)

Image via Wikipedia

The use of Truck-Rail Bulk Transloading has been the main mechanism that large industry has used to move bulk items for nearly a century now. This business has transformed from a simple set of railroad cars pulling into town being offloaded at the train station to having specific stations to off load the bulk material used in the industrial business world to meet the demands of the US economy.

The reason for this specialized service have many advantages over other forms of transportation of the bulk items that include lower fuel and overall cost along with a reduced amount of emissions involved in the transportation of the material. In many cases the emissions have been reduced to transport the material by up to 90 percent and the fuel used is reduced by up to 50%.

The handling of the material is a big factor in the safety of the transloading of the material along with the quality of it. For large scale movement of bulk items, the need for specialized and dedicated equipment is necessary for this process to be efficient and to prevent contamination. This is only done at properly equipped transloading stations.

The workers at these transloading stations are trained to properly handle these items on a regular basis. This way the material can be offloaded from the railcars to the tucks in the quickest and safest manner possible. This reduces the demurrage on the rail cars which again helps to lower the overall cost of transporting the bulk items to their final destination.

A majority of the transloading stations are near major municipalities but not directly in them. This allows for industry to use these stations so only a short distance needs to be traveled by truck for the bulk items journey to be complete without having to deal with excessive traffic. This saves on time and fuel costs.

The overall purpose of the truck-rail bulk transloading is to make this hazardous operation as safe as possible while reducing the costs of transporting the items in a quality manner so no damage or contamination is experienced by the bulk items. This saves on time, money, fuel and reduced the amount of emissions that are produced when the transporting of bulk items is done by other means.

Related articles

• Railcar Sand Unloading (transloading.org)
• More About Transloading Silica Sand (transloading.org)
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Image via Wikipedia

The transload equipment for bulk sand is used specifically by professionals to perform this task in the safest and quickest manner possible. While most of the devices used in this profession are used in other areas of industry, the ones used in the transloading industry as dedicated for a specific purpose only.

The reason for the dedicated use equipment is to reduce the possibility of any contamination from occurring. The level of allowable contamination is not the same as set by the FDA on food items, but that does not diminish its importance.

The best example of this is in the transfer of frac sand from the rail cars to the waiting tractor trailers. By only using the conveyor belts to transport this bulk material, the chances of cross contamination are significantly reduced. The maintenance and cleaning of these same devices is critical.

Frac sand is ordered by size and type. The reason there are so many different specifications to this material is because different size sand particles work differently in the hydro fracking process. The foreman of the wellbore knows what will work best for each particular well they are extracting the oil or nature gas from. If the wrong type or size of frac sand is used, the end results will be different.

It is true that all frac sand is used for the same purpose. The difference lies in the rock bed and how it interacts with it. Additionally as a service provider, it is important to always give the customer what they request.

These are the simple reasons why it is so important to provide dedicated transload equipment for bulk sand, efficiency and the correct material delivered as requested.

Transload Equipment for Bulk Sand in Action:

Transloading equipment for frac sand may be used in either direction.  This type of specialized conveying may be used to load rail cars from tanker trucks or the opposite which is to unload rail cars into trucks that will deliver the bulk sand to the job site.

Related Posts:

Rail Sand Transload

Bulk Material Transfer and Transloading

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)