Kodiak and Atlas Complete Driverless Frac Sand Haul in the Permian Basin
Announced July 23, 2024, the 21-mile run on private lease roads came with an order for driverless trucks and plans for commercial operations in 2025.
Kodiak Robotics and Atlas Energy Solutions announced on July 23, 2024, that they had completed their first driverless delivery of frac sand in the Permian Basin of West Texas, with no one inside the truck's cab.
The 21-mile run took Atlas sand from one of its depots to a wellsite. Commercial Carrier Journal reported that the haul took place on May 2 on Atlas's network of private lease roads and lasted two hours and seven minutes, with an average speed of 10 mph and a top speed of 15 mph.
The agreement
The companies also announced a deal under which Kodiak will fit new Atlas high-capacity trucks with its autonomous driving system. Atlas placed an order for Kodiak-equipped driverless trucks and said it planned to start commercial operations early in 2025 with its first two trucks.
Under the driver-as-a-service licensing agreement, Atlas will own the trucks and Kodiak will supply its hardware and software, which it describes as fully redundant and platform-agnostic. Kodiak will also provide operational support, including remote monitoring from its operations center in Lancaster, Texas.
Atlas, a supplier of proppant (the sand used in hydraulic fracturing) in the Permian Basin, said it runs a fleet of 120 trucks with custom trailers that carry expanded payloads.
Why the oilfield
The companies pointed to the region's conditions. The hot, dry Permian Basin is one of the most challenging environments for truck drivers, and Kodiak said its system was built to handle dust storms that cut visibility as well as extreme heat. Electrek, citing the Texas Department of Transportation, reported that the Permian Basin accounted for 7% of Texas traffic fatalities in 2021 despite having less than 2% of the state's population.
"The Permian Basin's expansive private lease road network, which expands across the Delaware and Midland Basins, is an ideal environment in which to introduce autonomous trucking in North America," said Chris Scholla, Atlas's chief supply chain officer. "With average traffic speeds of under 20 MPH on these large swaths of private roads, we can safely deliver a more reliable last-mile solution to our customers in the Permian Basin. This truly represents a step-change in oilfield logistics."
Kodiak founder and CEO Don Burnette said: "Our partnership with Atlas will make us the first autonomous semi-truck company to establish commercial driverless operations, and the first company to make autonomous trucking a real business. We look forward to scaling our trucking product not only in the Permian Basin, but also over-the-road."
Kodiak, founded in 2018, said it delivers freight daily for customers across the South using its autonomous technology and also works with the U.S. Department of Defense.
What it means for drivers and fleets
The July 2024 announcement showed driverless trucks arriving first in a closed, low-speed setting rather than on interstates: private oilfield roads with no public traffic and average speeds under 20 mph. For sand haulers and other oilfield drivers, it was an early sign that repetitive depot-to-wellsite runs could be automated before long-haul routes. For carriers watching autonomy, the ownership model mattered too: the shipper buys and owns the trucks, and the technology company licenses the driving system and monitors the trucks remotely.