With Increased Fracking Comes A West Texas Sand Mining Boom
As oil drilling in the Permian Basin rebounds, so do the industries that support it. One of these has been particularly lucrative lately, especially in Texas.
Matt Smith, director of commodity research at ClipperData, says the sand mining business is booming in the dunes of West Texas.
Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, uses water and chemicals to burrow under the earth, splitting rocks and releasing oil or natural gas. But the fracking process also requires sand, and lots of it.
‘[This] is not just the sand that you find on the beach, it’s much more durable and it’s about 1 or 2 millimeters thick,” Smith says. “It’s basically there just to prop open these tiny little gaps to then let the oil and gas escape.”
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