What is believed to be the largest frac sand unit train to date in North America was recently delivered by BNSF and Southwestern Railroad to Rangeland Energy’s RIO Hub near Loving, N.Mex. The RIO Hub is part of Rangeland’s RIO System, which serves oil and gas producers in the Delaware Basin.
The 150-car unit train, operated by BNSF, carried 16,500 tons of frac sand used in hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”). Powered by five locomotives it originated in Ottawa, Ill., BNSF handed the train off to short line Southwestern Railroad at Clovis, N.Mex., for delivery to the RIO Hub.
The unit train arrived on Oct. 2 and was unloaded within 22 hours. The sand was stored at the RIO Hub and will supply an operator with a large quantity of sand for high-volume fracking jobs in the Delaware Basin.
“Demand for sand in the Delaware Basin remains high, and unit train service provides a more cost-effective and reliable means of shipping large volumes of sand than manifest service,” said Rangeland Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Steve Broker. “Despite the current pricing environment, the Delaware Basin remains an economic play, and producers operating in the region continue to require increasingly large volumes of frac sand to drill and complete their wells. Our goal is to serve the needs of our customers, and we are pleased to have the capacity and flexibility to receive this record-breaking unit train at RIO. Rangeland was able to accommodate the unit train’s arrival and unload it in a timely manner because we designed the RIO Hub to have the size and scale to meet the sand or oil market’s requirements in a way that increases efficiencies and reduces costs. We expect sand volumes to continue to increase as operators drill longer wells and complete larger fracs. We are well positioned to meet those needs at the RIO Hub.”
Rangeland’s RIO System is described as “a multipart system designed to support the production of crude oil and condensate in the Delaware Basin. The RIO Hub is a 300-acre rail facility located near Loving, N.Mex., in the center of the basin’s drilling and production activity. The terminal provides services for outbound crude oil and condensate and inbound frac sand. The hub, which was fully commissioned in July 2015, provides frac sand suppliers with unit train unloading, silo storage and truck loading facilities for moving large quantities into the Delaware Basin. Initial rail-to-truck transload service began in November 2014. To date the RIO Hub has received 31 unit trains and additional manifest railcars. Approximately 523,000 tons of frac sand have been distributed to the region. Rangeland commissioned 26,000 tons of silo storage capacity in early August. Demand continues to be strong in the Delaware Basin, and Rangeland expects volumes to increase significantly in the months ahead. As a result, Rangeland plans to expand the RIO Hub to accommodate more than one million tons of frac sand per year. Rangeland also is working with crude oil and condensate customers regarding the installation of truck unloading facilities, tankage and storage services and rail and pipeline connectivity.”