Pneumatic Tanker As A Rookie

I am starting a new job on Mon, April 16th. I will be driving pneumatic tanker. The company does haul frac sand for the North Dakota oil fields. However, they have diversified so they can whether the storm when/if oil prices drop. The first thing on my agenda will be learning how to use the pneumatic tanker.

Good Luck JMart.

There is a diary that was started by Amish Country (?), he is running a pneumatic bulk tank similar to what you're going to be doing. If you haven't already done so, you might want to check it out.

4-16-18 First day. Today was a lot of paperwork and training. After lunch, I was shown how to use a pneumatic tanker. I mainly will be hauling frac sand. Learning how to use the tanker is fairly easy. More practice tomorrow. Tomorrow I get to go out to a frac job on a well site to see the operation.

4-17 and 4-18 I have been training the last couple of days. I've learned how to use the pneumatic tanker to blow sand. Yesterday, I went to a well site the is ready for fracking. Definitely tight space for maneuvering. Some crazy roads leading to the site. Dirt roads with some areas needing chains if it is snowy or muddy. One of our drivers got stuck late last night. It took two wreckers to pull him out. Then the well company shut the road down.

4-19-18 My new bosses were concerned about my shifting. So, we did another test drive today. This one went better. I never drove a 13 speed until this week. So, I get to go one to the next phase which is actually going to a site to load with sand and deliver to the frac site. I will be following someone for this first trip. Oil well site are much different than delivering to many other places. You have to wear PPE such as flame retardant coveralls, respirator to avoid any sand getting into your lungs, H2S gas detector, hard hat, and safety glasses. I'm looking forward to getting the show on the road.

Awesome to hear. Good luck and stay in touch.

4-20 First day of getting to haul sand. First load, made a Rookie mistake and damaged the chrome shroud covering the exhaust pipe. There was a pipe sticking up about 4' out of the ground and hit it backing up. Definitely a challenge backing on a well site, tight quarters and not a lot of room for error. Luckily, they do have spotters. Unfortunately, I didn't have a spotter because he already had me in position, but was at a bad angle to hook up the discharge hose correctly. So I needed to reposition. Second load went better. Needed to wait a couple of hours for repair on a belt on one of the sand bins. By the time we were ready to unload, it was dark. So, backing was a challenge, but the spotter helped a lot and used flashlights like they do for aircraft. Using the pneumatic trailer is pretty straight forward and had no problems there.