Unbeknownst to the scores of drivers on the nation’s roads, sand hauling in North Dakota plays an important role in getting gasoline into the tank of your car. A special type of sand, frac sand, is used to produce oil and natural gas, and the process of bringing it to your car is one of technological innovation combining nature and science. This article will go over the use of frac sand in this process of bringing oil from the ground into your car as gasoline.
Frac sand is very durable, consisting of very specifically sized, resilient grains. It is actually produced by the petroleum industry, and has become vital to one of the most common methods of oil extraction being implemented today, hydraulic fracturing. Frac sand often comes from sandstone, although on occasion ceramic beads are substituted for sandstone in this process. Sand hauling in North Dakota brings this substance to sites of organic shale, which is a rock type containing large quantities of hard-to-access oil and natural gas. This is a more technical situation due to the fact that the shale prevents the oil from flowing to a well, like what would normally be seen in the drilling process. This impermeable rock is still drilled into in order to form a well, except at the depth where the oil is located, specially treated water is then pumped at extremely high pressures into those wells, carrying those beads of frac sand into sections of rock that become more and more inflated by the water. The water pressure is then reduced, and as it recedes from the newly created fissures, the tiny grains of frac sand act as supports to hold the shape of the newly created cavities and maintain a new permeability in the rock so the released oil can then flow into the drilled wells.
Sand hauling in North Dakota becomes the crucial component in this process of accessing these dense and protected deposits of oil. The process is only possible if a great enough quantity of the frac sand is used. Like support beams in a mine shaft that bear the immense weight and pressure of the rock and earth around them, these grains of sand are responsible for supporting the immense weight of pressurized shale beneath the earth’s surface. If there isn’t enough of the frac sand to adequately support the newly created fissures, the receding water will also cause the fissures to collapse. Frac sand is the muscle behind holding up against the immense push of the earth until that oil can flow freely.
With sand hauling from MBI Energy Services, you will get the strength and support to get the oil flowing freely for you in North Dakota.
