Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/71813
Kristin Stump says her typical day, if starting empty, begins with a run to a rail yard where sand is loaded into her pneumatic dry-bulk trailer. Driving small roads, typically, in West Virginia, she's escorted to the well site, where sand is loaded into a storage bin. In a five-day work week, "I doubt if we do much more than 800 miles," she says. Fuel's I Gold Owner-operators find big money and good schedules working the oil and gas services boom. BY TODD DILLS 32 OVERDRIVE JULY 2012 n early 2011, Jimmy Lessley took three trucks and tank trailers and formed Lessley Services to run crude and natural gas condensate for Trans Montaigne Crude Products Group. "Now we're running 36 trucks," he says, all owner-operators, plus a 2006 Kenworth W900 daycab that he runs. The success of Lessley and others who've transitioned from other applications comes as companies leverage new technologies to produce oil and gas. These truckers are finding the perfect mix of above-average pay and job satisfaction working in the growing oil services industry. Rates can run as high as $3-plus per mile in flatbed to $5 or $6 working more locally with pneumatic tanks. A liquid crude tank- owning owner-operator team can earn up to $4,000 a day. Around Williston, N.D., oil boom