Atlas Energy Begins Driverless Truck Deliveries to Wells
[Stay on top of transportation news: Get TTNews in your inbox.]
Bulk carrier Atlas Energy Solutions began shipments of proppant on two driverless trucks equipped with self-driving technology from Kodiak Robotics recently, in a first for the software developer, the companies said.
Atlas produces and supplies proppant, gritty materials like frac sand mixed with fracking fluid that are used by oil and natural gas wells in western Texas and eastern New Mexico.
Frac sand consists of small, uniform particles injected into rock formations alongside water to fracture rock in hydraulic drilling operations. The sand props open the fractures it creates.
Atlas operates 12 proppant production facilities across the Permian Basin oil and gas region with a combined annual production capacity of 28 million tons. The proppant is shipped from the production facilities to the well pads. Austin, Texas-based Atlas operates a fleet of 120 trucks.
Launching self-driving trucks coincided with Atlas’ first deliveries of sand on the Dune Express, a 42-mile, fully electric conveyor system carrying sand from the company’s Kermit, Texas, sand facility to an end-of-line loadout facility in eastern New Mexico.
►Who's Still In Autonomous Trucking?
►Clevenger: Autonomous Trucking: A Rapidly Shifting Landscape
►Company snapshots: Aurora | Kodiak | Torc | Waabi | Stack AV | Gatik | Plus | Einride | Forterra | Outrider
►From November 2022: Who's Who in Self-Driving Truck Development
The trucks will transport sand from the Dune Express to Atlas customers across the Delaware Basin segment of the Permian Basin.
“Incorporating these driverless RoboTrucks into our operations is a significant advancement in the automation of our business, enhancing our ability to maintain a fundamentally safe and reliable service at the best price for our customers,” Atlas CEO John Turner said.
“Becoming the first company to operate our own autonomous semi-trucks and reaching 100 successful autonomous proppant deliveries demonstrates our unique commitment to driving innovation and automation across the Permian Basin’s rugged terrain, dust and heat,” Turner added.
Starting bulk autonomous truck deliveries on private roads in the Permian Basin is a first for any Kodiak Robotics customer, the companies said Jan. 24.
“This is an incredible moment, for us and for the autonomous trucking industry as we have officially delivered a commercial RoboTruck to a customer and launched commercial operations,” Kodiak founder and CEO Don Burnette said.
“The commercialization of autonomous trucks has been a goal for the industry for many years, and it has now come to fruition. Kodiak is the first company to make autonomous trucking a real business, and this is a major step towards profitability for our company,” he added.
Burnette
Deliveries of the commodity initially got underway in July using Kodiak-owned driverless trucks on a 21-mile off-road route.
Atlas intends to scale its RoboTruck deployment “considerably” over the course of 2025 with multiple deployments as the year progresses, the companies said. As a result of the partnership with Atlas, Kodiak has established an office in Odessa, Texas, to support ongoing operations. Initially, 12 Kodiak employees will work there. By the end of the first quarter of 2025, around 20 Kodiak staff will be on-site in Odessa.
The trucks feature Kodiak’s sixth-generation platform, which includes all the redundant components required for operations without a safety driver.
Kodiak’s biggest on-the-road customer so far is Artur Express, which plans to operate 100 fully autonomous sleeper trucks with Kodiak’s technology. The first of those trucks is set to hit the road in the second half of 2025.
Hazelwood, Mo.-based Artur Express ranks No. 89 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest for-hire carriers in North America and No. 28 among truckload carriers and No. 21 across refrigerated carriers.
Want more news? Listen to today's daily briefing below or go here for more info:
