Hello,

Which area of Texas does this type of trucking usually take place ?

Any info on it at all ? is it a good or bad gig ?

ive heard $40k in 3 months. Is this true or BS ?

I know nothing about it.

Most of the state.

Oil field trucking is a big variable...
What exactly did you hear?


40K gross in 3 months is probably hauling frac sand.
You'll need your own tractor and they will provide the trailer. You basically take frac sand from a railyard directly to the wellpad...
You will bust your balls for that. it's not like an eight hour day thing..

I've spent a lot of time on wellpads.

Our oil field roads get beat to crap, I'd hate to be running my own equipment on them, water and sand haulers aren't going slow over them either, like you said, you have to hustle to make a buck.

Even in a company truck, when I have travel on them I'm creeping along most of the time, pulling over often to let the oilfield guys fly by me.

3000 a week

Company driver.

Looks interesting.   Being based in NM, I’m assuming you’d be running in federal HOS rather than Texas HOS.   Anyone here that can speak to that?  

Most Frac sand drivers are exempt from HOS regs.
That's why you'll see frac rigs with sleepers... No sleeper no exemption..

I've never worked on a Texas pad however if you would like to find out more about it  just ask away.

So not an air mile radius exemption then….?

There is always a air mile radius exemption...
I can pretty much guarantee the sand terminal will be fairly close to the frac.

The reason for the exemption is any well service company including sand has alot of waiting around time... waiting to get on pad, waiting to get off...hours can pass before you get called up.... ive seen guys sit in staging for almost a whole day..rare, but it happens.. typical wait time is two hours.
I was a fuel truck driver.
Longest I've ever waited was 5 hours...the pad was busy and they couldn't get me in...then they end up getting critically low on fuel and you get priority.
Pads can't operate without fuel, water and sand. Fuel usually gets priority.
Some pads are huge, you can go there directly and stage up right there...some are small and staging is miles away. I've been on staging that was a 1 hour drive on tiny back roads using escorts and traffic conrol to get you in.  You see some real wild shit up here in the mountains.. like being pulled up steep inclines with D10s.

I'm not in Texas... so my experiences may differ...

In PA  and WV.

I'm pretty sure that is wrong.  The oilfield exemption is for equipment actually doing the job(frac pumps, cement pumps ect.)  

You may want to look that up.  Like I said, I'm only pretty sure that's wrong.

ETA-Appears to be a gray area.  May cover sand boxes, but probably not pneumatic cans.
Attached File

Frac pumps and cement pumps and snubbing units and all the other equipment never leave the site until its done. Those guys are probably not excempt...

Doesn't matter anyway.. I don't even know why the question came up.

When I was doing well fueling I was never asked about HOS, not once.
I was always within the 100 mile rule.

The question came up because it is relevant how many hours a day/days per week you work for your 3k.  



If it’s Texas HOS, that 3k doesn’t sound quite so good.  

If it’s Federal HOS, that’s not bad.  


My assumption that it wouldn’t qualify for operating under the 150 air-mile radius rule comes from being familiar with west Texas, and not thinking it’s likely that one would fall under those rules.  


I haven’t worked for an oil company, so don’t know the answers.   That’s why I asked.    Start waving that kind of money around and I get curious.     It sounds like you were working exclusively the fuels end, so probably can’t speak to how the sand haulers get paid - whether it’s by the load or time, but that would be a deal killer to me with the wait times you mentioned if you’re paid by the load.    

most of the  guys I talked to were owner operators.  They got paid 800 a load.  They were doing 3 loads on a good day and 2 on a average and sometimes 1.

Some of the guys didnt own a rig and were hourly.  I do not know what they made.

Most guys I knew would run the piss out of their trucks.  Probably net half of that 800.
That was years ago.  These days, sand does not pay that much, and since I have not been on a pad in a few years, i dunno what they make.

Every single well site is different up here.  down in tx they might be all similar because of the terrain.

If you want to know more about that job, contact the dude listed in the ad.

* What i heard* was for a brief  moment- I overheard a few Truckers on the *Sqwak Box* talking to eachother about it, as I was yankin a Possum Belly over Hwy 199 before they got too scratchy and out of range to hear

All I know..

That's why I asked here

And I appreciate all the responses and - "back and forth" between everyone.

:)

I looked into this and was close to heading out there to give it a try before the guys that got me before me warned me off of it and it fell apart.

Basically the numbers you hear are true if you didn't have to wait, but in actual experience at least where they were the wait times were so bad it was hard to get more than one load a day. They said a lot of guys were just sleeping in line, forget about actually parking the truck and getting a good night's sleep.  They were literally working 24/7 and catching a nap whenever they could until somebody knocked on their door and told them it was time to move up in the line.

That was with hoppers, it was better with boxes because they could just take the box off and stock them on the site and you didn't have to wait as long, but then they had a new problem with boxes because they didn't have enough empty boxes for you to go off duty with a box on your trailer, so you had to surrender your boxes at the end of the day and who knows when they could find an empty for you to start with the next day.

I'm sure that this is not the experience everywhere and in job advertisements I would see companies say something about how "our drivers don't have to spend any time waiting in line", but unless you are talking to drivers who work for that company there's no way to know if that's actually true.

I feel pretty confident saying if it looks too good to be true it probably is, I was told if I headed out there with my truck I could make 10 to 12,000 a week gross.  I assume if that was really true guys would be lined up to do it.  Instead at least out in West Texas in the Odessa area they were seeing a lot of Mexicans with international driver's licenses and zero DOT presence to enforce anything.

ETA: to answer the original question, it looks to me like all the opportunities were concentrated in Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Texas starting from the west of Houston out through San Antonio and of course Odessa.  Personally if I was going to pursue it further I was looking at the opportunities in Oklahoma around Oklahoma City and Tulsa.

CMiller and Everyone else !

Appreciate the *Squawking* and hot seat banter and YOUR response Brother !

Thank you and the rest of you Leg Crankers for your Knowledge.

Fucking love this forum.



Boys - as always, keep her between the lines.

CMiller is right about the sandbox haulers..
Most of them just drop off the box at the dance floor of a frac and grab a empty and roll.

Up here I have never seen a shortage of boxes.

I know there are alot of differences between the locations and how things are done... I just don't have any TX experience to confirm/compare.

OverScoped

Thanks for your response as well !



This forum has the quiet and cool potential to be the most informative "Drivers Room" on the internet IMO.


im in 100%

If you want to beat the hell out of your equipment, sit a lot on a well site, make good money on rare occasions, and be at the bottom of the barrel for priority in the oil field, then hauling frac sand will be just what you are looking for.

It is a dog eat dog world and just when you think you have a good thing going, they will start using another company that agrees to haul for a lower freight rate. Some sight supervisors have zero leadership skills and the only character they have is 100% asshole.

I have seen some really good times for hauling frac sand, but it appears those days are gone. To the corporate heads, you are just a dollar sign and if they can get the work done for less, they couldn't care less about your situation. Demerge has also disappeared. It is to their advantage to overstack trucks at the pad and have you sit for 10 hours with no additional pay.

If you like your motor sucking in tons of silt, it is a great place. The silt is sometimes 8" deep and no water trucks in sight to control it. Motors are costing $50,000 to replace nowadays.

Also, wearing a respirator while hucking around hoses really really sucks. 110 degrees outside, sweat pooring inside of your mask, worthless hard hats, hot coveralls, and ear piercing equipment makes it pretty miserable.

Add to that all of the international drivers who think it is okay to wear pajamas everywhere and drive like dogshit. There are too many drivers who run stop signs, stop lights, intersections, and think they have to speed everywhere. They will pass you on skinny roads and take up your lane because they do not give a sh*t about you. West Texas has become a death trap for residents and workers because of drivers who aren't professionals.

Oh and everybody thinks they are going to get rich in the oil field.

As much as I appreciate the oil field and the workers, it ain't what it used to be.

West Texas and New Mexico might still have some companies that have housing or trucks to live out of.  You’d need to figure out what you want to do.  You have frac sand, Vac trucks, winch trucks, and the drivers that work for the frac companies driving the trucks and doing whatever they do on location.  Spent about 5 years working out Midland and Pecos running Vac, Super Vac,end dump, lowboy, and winch before things bottomed out for Steve Kent.  Probably 8 or 9 years ago.  Made enough to pay for my house and land, and become debt free while also blowing money I wish I had saved.  Know the local vac/saltwater truck companies are starting out around $21 an hour and that’s guys that hardly have any driving experience in North West La.

From a scan of the job listings for frac sand, it looked like almost everything was in Texas with some others in Oklahoma and Louisiana.  You think LA or OK would be a little different experience than west Texas?

I don’t know what the Oklahoma scene looks like at the moment.  North West La on the other hand is more local work.  You’d more than likely waste any money you’d try and gain paying for a place to lay your head down and get a shower.  Need to talk to one of my friends that’s a field supervisor for one of the bigger local companies in the next couple days.  I’ll see what he knows of in our area and some other places for someone wanting to work without moving from several states over.  For what it’s worth I left the oilfield 2 years ago today and work in the agricultural field.  If I was to start over at least 10 years ago.  I’d probably try for a frac or coil tubing company.  Something where you have somewhat set shifts and only driving to move equipment to and from locations when everything is done.