Monthly Archives: August 2013
They Run In Packs . . .
First off, if you saw the blog yesterday where I talked about it being a slower day with only XXXX vehicles, the number should have been 95. I put the XXXX in as a placeholder until I verified the actual number and then forgot to update it. Sorry ‘bout that.
I finally got a chance this morning to drive back into the site and see how things are laid out.
This is the RR crossing that I mentioned yesterday. The first gate where the guys are standing is actually a cattle crossing gate. The train crossing is back by the Stop Sign.
I got a chance to talk with John and Rhonda, the couple that have that gate, and they said that from the time you can see the train coming over the slight hill until it passes the crossing, it’s only 28 seconds. Not a lot of time for a big truck to have to slow down for the hill and the crossing and then make a sharp left turn toward the wellheads before they clear the RR crossing.
Rhonda is in the orange vest and the two guys are pulling a 12” diameter flexible water hose underneath the cattle guard. This will bring water from the fracking pond down to the sites where the actual fracking will be done.
This is the manmade fracking pond, done by making a big hole, lining it with plastic, and then keeping it filled with water.
Despite all the hype, most fracking is done by injecting water, sand, and a small amount of detergent down the hole to put pressure on the oil-bearing shale rock formations to cause it to expand and crack open, releasing more oil. The oil in shale rock is not found in big pools, but is contained within the rock itself, holding it kind of like a sponge. Fracturing (or fracking) it allows the oil to be released and recovered.
And as it turns out, there’s an awful lot of shale oil in Texas and elsewhere in the US. And the world, for that matter. In fact enough to dwarf what Saudi Arabia and Middle East have.
This is the tank farm for the producing wells already in this area.
All of the operational wells here feed into these tanks and then are trucked out. But not for much longer. They are almost finished with a feeder pipeline that will connect the tanks with a main pipeline to take the crude directly to a refinery.
And this is us.
That’s the main highway right out in front of us, so hopefully we won’t have 6 flats like we did last year driving on all the bad backroads.
We set up the canopy in front of the rig this time due to the size of the site, and the fact that our new canopy is 13’ x 13’ instead of 10’ x 10’ like last year.
One thing different here from last year is the way the trucks come through the gate. It’s like they run in packs. We’ll get nothing for 15 minutes and then 9 vehicles will through, one right behind the other, like they plan it this way. Still haven’t figured out why it’s like this this year.
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Thought for the Day:
Never do your enemy a small injury.
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Not Much . . .
new happened today. We’re settling into the routine of a new gate, starting to learn names and faces of the regulars, and who’s who’s in the pecking order.
My night shifts from 11pm to 7am are pretty quiet. I usually don’t have any traffic between midnight and 6am. Then it picks up pretty quickly.
Today was a bit slower than yesterday’s 141, We only had about 95 vehicles come through. But that may change. Jan was told today that once they start fracking we’ll have about 100 sand trucks coming through every day, in addition to the regular traffic. Oh Boy!
But she was also told that all this might go through December, which means we would stay here until we leave for Houston right before Thanksgiving. Hope that works out, as we’d hoped to not move as much this year as we did last year, 4 times in 4 months.
Really glad we didn’t get the gate down the road that guards the railroad crossing. Even up here, about a mile away, the trains are loud coming through. I can imagine being parked about 30 feet from the tracks. The gate guards there just act as crossing guards for the tracks, helping the vehicles to cross safely, but some people just don’t listen.
The guard had one big truck stopped, and another truck came up behind him. The second guy apparently thought the first truck was just talking, so he pulled around and crossed the tracks, missing the oncoming train that he couldn’t see, by just inches.
So far this site has been pretty critterless. A lot of bugs, but nothing bigger. I did however hear some coyotes yipping late this evening, so there’s something around somewhere.
I got the misting system set up today, and it helped cool things down, although it was only about 95. It was 102 back in Webster, near where our home is, so every bit helps.
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Thought for the Day:
“A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what’s going on.” — William S. Burroughs
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