Atlas Energy Solutions—a leading proppant producer and proppant logistics provider, serving primarily the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico—and Kodiak Robotics have entered into an agreement whereby Kodiak will outfit new Atlas high-capacity trucks with Kodiak’s autonomous driving technology.

The two companies have already completed their first driverless delivery of frac sand in West Texas’s Permian Basin. The 21-mile delivery transported Atlas’s high-quality frac sand from an Atlas depot to a wellsite with no one inside the cab.

The companies also announced that Atlas has placed an order for Kodiak-equipped driverless trucks that will deliver frac sand across the Permian Basin’s existing infrastructure of private lease roads. Early next year, Atlas plans to launch commercial operations using its first two trucks equipped with the Kodiak Driver, Kodiak’s autonomous system.

Under the agreement, Kodiak will provide its technology to Atlas via a driver-as-a-service licensing agreement. Atlas will own the trucks, and Kodiak will provide the Kodiak Driver’s fully-redundant, platform-agnostic, hardware and software stack designed for scalable driverless deployment. Kodiak will also provide operational support services, including remote monitoring from its operations center in Lancaster, Texas.

The hot and dry climate in the Permian Basin makes it one of the world’s most challenging environments for truck drivers. The Kodiak Driver is well equipped to handle driving through harsh conditions, including dust storms that impact visibility and extreme heat.

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. 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.

—Chris Scholla, Chief Supply Chain Officer, Atlas

Atlas Energy Solutions operates 12 proppant production facilities across the Permian Basin with a combined annual production capacity of 28 million tons, including both large-scale in-basin facilities and smaller distributed mining units. The company manages a portfolio of logistics assets, which includes the 42-mile Dune Express conveyor system, which is currently under construction and is scheduled to come online in the fourth quarter of 2024.

In addition to our conveyor infrastructure, Atlas manages a fleet of 120 trucks, which are capable of delivering expanded payloads due to custom-manufactured trailers and patented drop-depot process.