West Texas fracking causes such demand for sand that mining industry has gone mobile to produce it

. Operators in the Permian Basin are expected to use 66 million tons of sand this year, up from 51 million tons last year, according to Norwegian research firm Rystad Energy. In 2017, with few sand mines operating in the Permian, most was hauled from other states on trucks or rail cars. By 2020, however, some 90 percent of sand used in the basin was mined there.

It has made the Permian the second-largest oil producer in the world, trailing only Saudi Arabia, and elevated the U.S. to theBut the surge in fracking also ignited a sharp rise in drilling costs and natural resources used to get oil and gas out of the earth. Companies continue to tell investors they’re working to increase efficiency and cut costs, making the adoption of mobile sand minds more attractive.

“So logistics became the problem,” Arceneaux said. “Now they're developing these small plants that you're able to set up really close to the drill site, and now you've limited the logistics.” There’s also something different about the sand supplied from the mobile mine, Raines said, something that might seem like a small detail but makes a huge difference: the sand is wet when transported and delivered to the drill site, as opposed to traditional frac sand that’s dried for transport.

This is a big selling point for oil and gas producers looking to lower emissions in their operations while also trying to lower costs and increase efficiency. Most public companies, including oil majors Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Shell and BP, have goals to lower emissions over the next few decades. Analysts also say because they don’t have the dryers, mobile sand mines have less red tape when it comes to permitting.

I would imagine that people living near drilling activities will be upset by more “low red tape” mining activities.

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