Growing up in Midland, Texas, there wasn’t a lot to do, Bud Brigham says. “We used to sled on the dunes—using a cardboard box. If you were really fancy you made a sled, put laminate on the bottom and waxed it.” Fifty years later, you can still sled the giant sand dunes at Monahans State Park. If you’re lucky you might spot a threatened three-inch dunes sagebrush lizard skittering amid the shinnery oak bushes.
What you will see for sure is sand trucks. Lots of them. Brigham’s company, Atlas Energy Solutions, fills up to 1,200 trucks a day, each with 24 tons of sand destined for oil fracking operations. Brigham’s no longer playing on the dunes; instead, he’s digging them up—to the tune of 10 million tons a year.
At the heart of Atlas’ mine in bone-dry Kermit, Texas, is the incongruous sight of a 50-acre blue lagoon, where barges dredge the sand, sucking it up through hoses. It goes through cleaners, dryers and screens, then into tall silos for loading into trucks.
The sand doesn’t have far to go. For hundreds of miles around Kermit, the landscape, known as the Permian Basin, is dotted with thousands of oil-and-gas wells, with dozens of new ones being fracked every day. You cannot frack without sand—and you need preposterous amounts of it, on the order of 10,000 tons per well. At the drilling site that sand is mixed with water, then injec ted at high pressure into the wellbore (often three miles down, then two or more miles horizontally). This subterranean blasting, Brigham explains, “props open fissures to let the oil and gas out.”
Esta historia es de la edición Sep 2023 de Forbes Middle East - English.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor ? Conectar
Esta historia es de la edición Sep 2023 de Forbes Middle East - English.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor? Conectar
Celebrating Emirati Businesswomen and Entrepreneurs on Emirati Women's Day
As part of the U.A.E.’s annual Emirati Women’s Day celebrations, the Abu Dhabi Business Women Council and the Abu Dhabi Chamber hosted an event on August 28, 2024, under the theme “We Collaborate for Tomorrow,” celebrating the role and achievements of Emirati women.
THE MIDDLE EAST'S TOP 100 HEALTHCARE LEADERS 2024
MENA’s healthcare landscape is evolving towards integration, marked by the rise of fully comprehensive ecosystems. Industry giants are setting future trends, driven by systems that thrive on data abundance, accessibility, and intersectoral collaboration.
SCOUTING FOR OPPORTUNITIES
Ayman Cheikh-Lahlou, Chairman and CEO of the Morocco-based Cooper Pharma, took the helm of the family-owned pharmaceutical company in 2005 and has seen business boom over nearly 20 years. Now, he’s exploring expansion opportunities in new markets.
TURNING THE TIDE
Irina Zaporozhets, President and General Manager for Eli Lilly Suisse S.A. in the META region is driving expansion, focusing on innovation and patient-centric care. As she navigates regional challenges, her commitment to expanding access to medicine remains at the forefront.
Supercharging AI
Armed with a newly raised 640 million, GROQ thinks it can challenge one of the world’s most valuable companies with a purpose-built chip designed for Al from scratch.
How Technology is Accelerating Digital Equality in Diverse Markets
The rise of smartphones and digital technologies has transformed our daily lives, contributing to the evolution of connected consumers.
Rare Fortune
Money manager JAMES LITINSKY turned a bad junk bond bet into a $400 million fortune. His MP Materials operates a strategic mine and will begin manufacturing supermagnets for electric vehicles next year.
The State of Mental Health in the Middle East
While mental health awareness is on the rise, the Middle East faces some challenges in providing care. Still, we're seeing some progress.
Big Breakthroughs
From gene therapy to nasal sprays, these were some of the most significant healthcare breakthroughs in the last year.
MENA's 5 Most Valuable Healthcare Companies 2024
The combined market cap of 57 healthcare companies listed on MENA's stock exchanges hit $83.7 billion on August 13, 2024, with the top five companies accounting for about 62.4% of the total market cap. These are MENA's five most valuable healthcare companies in 2024.