The Dune Express: A 42-Mile Long Superhighway for Frac Sand

Necessity is the mother of invention

Looking like a roller coaster, the “Dune Express” conveyor belt in West Texas can move 13 million tons of frac sand annually.

Back in 2007, as the Shale Revolution was gaining momentum, I served as the Executive Director of the Barnett Shale Energy Education Council in Fort Worth, Texas. My job involved answering questions and educating the public about the drilling and hydraulic fracturing boom in North Texas. In the early years of the urban drilling boom, a common concern was not the alleged evils of hydraulic fracturing (aka fracking or fracing); it was truck traffic. Hundreds of trucks are required to move around drilling rigs and related equipment, and hundreds more are needed to bring in sand, which is mixed with water and pumped underground under high pressure to create fractures in the shale rock and liberate natural gas. Sand trucks are numerous and heavy, damaging roads, and are involved in numerous accidents.

While the early days of the shale boom occurred in urban locations, most shale drilling is now in rural areas, especially in the Permian Basin in West Texas and eastern New Mexico. But even in the boonies, truck traffic, especially those hauling frac sand, is a big problem. Hauling sand by trucks was the only way to get the sand to the drilling locations until an innovative company devised an alternative called the "Dune Express,” which started operating in West Texas earlier this year.

The Dune Express, running from Kermit, Texas, into Lea County, New Mexico, is a $400 million machine with a 42-mile-long, fully electrified conveyor belt system. Built by Atlas Energy Solutions to transport frac sand, it stretches from a sand mine in Kermit, Texas, to just past the Texas-New Mexico state line in Lea County, New Mexico. It began operations this year and can move up to 13 million tons of sand annually, reducing the need for truck transport in the Permian Basin.

The system includes two permanent loadout facilities—one at the state line with 84,000 tons of storage and another at the end of the line with 30,000 tons—plus mobile offload options along the route. It runs about 10 miles per hour for 12-14 hours a day, with plans to run 24/7 at full capacity by the end of this year. By replacing thousands of truck trips, it aims to cut emissions, ease road congestion, and improve safety on local highways, where crashes are common due to oilfield traffic. The conveyor features crossings for wildlife and traffic, like tunnels for animals and 25-foot-high highway overpasses.

The sand moves in a tray-shaped pan with a cover that can be removed at any point, but most of it gets offloaded into silos near the Texas and New Mexico border. Along its journey, the sand is sold and sent to well service companies, who move it by truck to drilling sites.

My Take: Drilling in the Permian Basin will continue for decades, with recoverable reserves estimated at 50-60 billion barrels or higher. As of early 2025, it was producing about 6 million barrels per day, making it the top-producing region in the U.S. Geographically, the Permian is massive—spanning 75,000 square miles, or about the size of Nebraska. Getting frac sand to the hundreds of drilling sites is a problem, and the Dune Express is an innovative way to help alleviate that problem.

With the “green new scam” now on the decline and AI expected to drastically increase the need for electricity, the demand for crude oil and natural gas is set to skyrocket. Technological advances will characterize every facet of oil and gas drilling in the coming years. The coming technological revolution in the oil and gas industry will be amazing.

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