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In mid-July, US President Joe Biden left for the Middle East also with the aim of obtain a commitment from Saudi Arabia to increase oil production. In fact, a greater number of barrels on the market would favor the lowering of international energy prices, and consequently reduce the rate of inflation in the United States. But the Saudis did not comply with the request of the American president; even if they had wanted to, however, experts think they couldn’t have pumped as much more than they already do.
The first oil producer in the world it’s not Saudi Arabia, though: it’s the United States. The crude oil Biden needs would have it at home, but she can’t rely on domestic companies to bring it to the surface. Rather than getting caught up in the mining frenzy and opening new wells, many of them prefer to please their shareholders and focus on budgetary rigor: less expenses and better dividends.
In fact, in the Permian Basin – a rich oil field between Texas and New Mexico – there are companies that would like to drill to get through the high price phase, but they can’t: there is no sand, necessary for the fracturing process (fracking) of shale rocks that trap hydrocarbons. The shortage amounts to over a million tons, and has ended up costing the raw material much more. At the close of 2021 – reports Bloomberg – a ton of frack sand it cost $ 22; at the beginning of July it was worth about 55. To stem the supply crisis in Texas, some oilmen chose to have sand delivered from Wisconsin (thousands and thousands of miles northeast) by train, paying almost double.
It is not uncommon for the sand used for oil exploration in the Permian to travel great distances, compressed inside trucks. Yet the basin is not only rich in crude oil and gas but also in sandstones, stones from which it is possible to extract the sand for the fracking. Currently in the United States, 25 million tons of sand are produced for the oil industry, but demand is about 5 percent higher. Traditional mining companies are unable to satisfy it all because they have logistical problems, mainly linked to the shortage of drivers who would have to transport the grains to the places of use. However, companies such as Nomad Proppant and Hi-Crush promise to revolutionize this organizational model: they have developed machinery that allows for the extraction of sand in the immediate vicinity of oil wells. In this way, transport times and costs are reduced, the need for truck drivers is reduced and the use of smaller sand deposits, which have so far been neglected because they are not very profitable with conventional technologies, is opened up.
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