GreenHunter Water LLC has ordered new rolling stock equipment assets to service oil and gas operators that are active in the Marcellus and Utica Shale plays located in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia. The new equipment will consist of three new Peterbilt 388 trucks with 100- barrel (BBL) non-code vacuum tanks and three new Peterbilt 388 trucks with 100-barrel code hazmat-certified vacuum tanks.
To facilitate the purchase, the Company has expanded an existing commercial loan facility with an Appalachia-based regional bank. The loan was increased from an existing lending facility of $2.1 million to $3.3 million. The equipment is scheduled to be delivered to the Appalachian region by the end of January 2013 and should be in operation prior to the end of the first quarter of 2013.
“The addition of six new bobtail trucks to our fleet is much needed,” says Jonathan D Hoopes, GreenHunter Energy’s president and chief operating officer. “We are presently running near full capacity utilization of our existing Appalachia fleet and with new disposal facilities in the region expected to come on line in the near future, we wanted to maintain a proper balance of transport equipment relative to expected disposal volumes. We started 2012 with only five trucks. With this acquisition, we will be running 31 transport trucks in the Appalachia region. Prior to this acquisition, we have not been able to pick up water mixed with hydrocarbons. These new trucks being added to our existing fleet are certified and will allow us to increase our services offering to existing customers and also obtain new customers who we have not been able to accommodate in the past.”
The new hazmat-capable equipment will enable GreenHunter Water to enter into the oil transportation business as part of the company’s Total Water Management Solutions. As oil and natural gas are produced, the hydrocarbons come to the surface with water. Typically, hydrocarbons are separated from the water at the well location through mechanical separators or via a gravity separation process. GreenHunter Water now has the ability to pick up liquids from well pads where water separation equipment is not in use and transport the product to a fluids refinement center.
GreenHunter Water also announced the launch of its next-generation modular above-ground water storage tank system for the oil and gas industry. The fabrication of panels for the first MAG Tank unit has been completed with deployment slated for the last week in December in St Mary Parish LA.
The Patent Pending MAG Tank design provides operators with a customizable steel tank footprint in unlimited capacity and shape configurations above 10,900 barrels. The MAG Tank is GreenHunter Water’s response to requests from existing customers for a large capacity temporary water storage system that can be installed on a variety of well pads--especially those in challenging terrain as found in the states of Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky in the Appalachian region. MAG Tank is an alternative to the industry-standard circular above ground tank systems.
MAG Tank significantly reduces truck traffic and environmental disturbance when compared to traditional frac tank and earthen impoundment alternatives. The tank’s robust steel standard panel wall units enable quick assembly and disassembly and a disposable impermeable liner and geotextile substrate provide fluid containment and a puncture resistant ground covering. After pad site preparation, a MAG Tank is typically installed in one to two days. The MAG Tank design exceeds current safety and engineering standards, according to GreenHunter officials.