Fracking creates a huge supply chain challenge

The controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing, better known as "fracking," requires massive amounts of water, chemicals, and sand, which are mixed together and are forced into wells in order to extract oil and gas from shale. The water splits open the rock, and the sand props the cracks open so machinery can extract the oil or gas. That much is pretty well known.

What many people don't know is that since 2013, hydraulic fracturing has created huge demand for a particular type of sand. As reporter Dan Weissman explained recently on the American Public Media radio show "Marketplace," technological advances that year allowed the energy industry to develop shale extraction on a commercial scale, mostly in the United States, Canada, and China. In just **ital{two years,} supplying sand to fracking operations has become a $10 billion industry involving some 100 billion pounds of that commodity annually, according to Weissman.

Think about that. Practically overnight, the energy industry has had to develop a supply chain capable of extracting, processing, and delivering—and later removing—millions of tons of a hard-to-handle commodity in some pretty remote areas.

Just another reminder that sometimes logisticians **ital{are} asked to move heaven and earth.