Aurora Innovation, a driverless freight company, has reached a commercial agreement with Detmar Logistics, a provider of dry-bulk and fracturing sand logistics, to autonomously transport proppant for a large multinational oil and gas company in the Permian Basin. The initial contract calls for 30 autonomous trucks to begin service next year, moving sand across the region for up to 20 hours per vehicle per day.
The announcement made on 8 December did not identify the operator but said the technology will allow Detmar to double its sand-hauling capacity for the customer.
Aurora said the deployment will represent the first autonomous sand-hauling operation on public roads and highways in the Permian. In July 2024, Atlas Energy Solutions said it was preparing to use autonomous trucks for similar work in the region, but only on private lease roads.
Detmar said the development establishes one of its initial routes between customer locations and that the company is expanding its network beyond terminal-to-terminal operations next year.
“As simul-fracs demand higher sand volumes and operators move to 24/7 schedules, maintaining a safe, reliable flow of proppant is critical,” Matt Detmar, CEO of Detmar, said in a statement. “Aurora's autonomous technology is a game changer for our industry. It will enable us to safely improve efficiency and support our customers’ continuous operations. We expect autonomous trucks to become a competitive advantage to strengthen and grow our business in the years to come.”
The first supervised autonomous operations, connecting Detmar’s Midland facility and Capital Sand’s mining site in Monahans, Texas, about 57 miles away, will begin early next year.
A second fleet is expected to start operating in the second quarter. At that point, Detmar expects to transition to fully driverless operations by removing the human supervisor from the vehicles.
The route will combine high-speed interstate driving with local and private roads near Detmar’s facility and the mining site. Aurora noted that the trucks will also be capable of autonomously navigating overhead silos for proppant loading.
Detmar said the autonomous fleet will operate alongside its human-driven trucks and that it intends to further expand the use of the technology over time.
The joint release noted that because the driverless trucks are not subject to fatigue and can monitor conditions in a full 360° view, they are expected to enhance road safety in the Permian, a region that consistently records the highest rates of severe and fatal crashes in Texas.
