Logistics and transport (trucks, multimodal)
Moving Vaca Muerta's sand is an ~USD 850 million a year business: seven million tonnes that leave almost entirely from Entre Ríos and travel by truck. The fleet assigned to it is between 4,000 and 4,300 trucks, six trips a month each, and the industry reckons 700 to 800 more have to be added per year. But the number that matters is another: the trip takes 70 to 75 hours against the 48 that are optimal and the return runs empty. The capacity lost waiting is of the same order as the entire fleet the sector plans to buy through 2028, and that —not the train, which moves 2.6% and keeps falling— is the gap a new entrant can take.
On this page
Who really pays?
Freight is not always paid by the operator, and the customer changes with the cargo and the leg. Three different doors — knowing which one is yours is the first step of the sale:
Sand is sold delivered at the well —about USD 145 a tonne by the Entre Ríos route, freight included—: whoever arranges or subcontracts the long-haul truck is usually the Entre Ríos sand producer, and the operator buys the sand delivered.
The largest operators, with their own sand logistics, internalize part of the freight and contract carriers and cooperatives directly.
Ten operators finance the Añelo bypass and run the tender; they recover via royalty advance + toll.
Which projects move this demand
YPF mega-development: plateau of 240,000 bbl/d in 2032, 1,152 wells. A signal of the scale jump in Neuquén upstream leveraged on already-secured…
see the project →When the window opens
Freight demand moves with fracturing, not with oil production, and the way the load travels can be counted. These five numbers publish themselves, with a date.
TBSA's corridor needs 700 days from an approval that has not yet arrived, and the branch line that currently reaches Zapala goes to tender only after the three state lines, whose bids open on 11 November 2026.
See the evidence
Vertical integration (YPF/Marín, Tecpetrol) reduces outsourced freight. thesis
The provinces the trucks cross have started charging those not based there: Entre Ríos sharply raised the levy it charges on sand leaving its territory and La Pampa is designing tolls for heavy transport. These are costs landing on a tariff already agreed for the season. thesis
Copper development will coincide with Vaca Muerta's and demands very similar services: the same equipment and the same drivers. It is risk and leverage at once — it lifts freight prices and at the same time makes people harder to find. thesis
The opportunity in depth
The opportunity in depth
The loaded return. Sand trucks run back empty from Neuquén towards the Litoral, and the alternative the industry itself is studying is returning with grain. Whoever assembles that fit splits the fuel across two loads instead of one: it is the largest saving available today, and it needs neither train nor barge.
Cut the waiting, do not add trucks. The trip takes 70 to 75 hours against 48 optimal, and the hours are lost at quarries, at loading and unloading points and on the access roads. Regulated parking, synchronised slots and transfer nodes are what give those hours back. ⚠️ The Añelo bypass is already awarded and finishes in October 2027: any yard being planned has to serve the situation after that date, not today's bottleneck.
The handling at both ends. Drying, wellhead silos and pumping are USD 25 of the USD 122 it costs to move each tonne —about USD 175 M a year— and are done with far less fleet capital than the long haul. ⚠️ It is not vacant: a single haulier controls the field's main storage hub and the last mile.
See the detail
See the detail
When you get paid, and what blocks it
already in
split
The long haul is not fragmented: six hauliers concentrate the largest operator's sand tenders, and the biggest of them runs more than 1,200 trucks and controls the field's main storage hub and the last mile. The fleet assigned to sand haulage is 4,000 to 4,300 units, at six trips a month (2026).
⚠️ Rail does not start from zero: it has been moving frac sand since 2013, although today that is some 15,000 tonnes a month —2.6% of the volume— and a third of what it moved in 2019. The corridor needs 700 days from an approval that has not yet arrived.
Vertical integration; YPF (Marín) co-drives the rail line to Añelo to move sand.
In insolvency proceedings since mid-2025: a collapsed incumbent, not a reference. ⚠️ That its fall left the last mile and wellhead silos vacant is NOT verified: later evidence pushes the other way, because a single haulier controls the main storage hub and that business.
The jobs it createsMass transport employment (drivers, yard operators); cutting the lost hours decongests the roads and Añelo, lowers road accidents and the logistics cost of the whole basin. thesis
The long-haul freight of the sand is already counted in the sand niche (delivered at the well), and the operators' vertical integration takes a growing share. What is captive and what is already counted have to be netted out. estim
Addressable: coordinating the return load, the yards and transfer nodes that cut the waiting, and the handling at both ends —drying, wellhead silos and pumping—, which is ~USD 175 M of the ~USD 850 M. estim
Between 10 and 15% of the ~USD 850 M haulage submarket, which is the same method and the same number the sand niche uses on the same money. estim
calculate it
The number comes from multiplying the year’s activity by the unit price, and it is cross-checked against independent methods that give the same result.
The full calculation, step by step
Concentration High on the long haul and in storage: six hauliers concentrate the largest operator's sand tenders and one alone runs more than 1,200 trucks and controls the field's main storage hub and the last mile. Rail was never empty —it already moves some 15,000 tonnes of frac sand a month— but that is 2.6% of the volume and its share keeps falling. The gap is not one of competitors: it is one of capacity and lost hours.
The rule that moves it
Logistics is moved by two things at once: the national deregulation of freight transport and, in the basin, the road infrastructure the oil companies themselves finance.
See the underlying reading
The underlying policy that opens up this demand. It is the same inference declared by the rules and the program pillars pushing in this direction.
better export netbackSee the full legal grounds
Where the number comes from
~USD 850 M/yr — the same money the sand niche quantifies, seen from transport. Of that total, some USD 680 M are moving the tonne and some USD 175 M processing it at both ends.
See the calculation, the variables and how it was validated
The market is built from two numbers that move —how many tonnes have to be moved and how much haulage charges for each— and from the internal split of that charge, which barely moves.
Freight for tubulars, cement, chemicals, water, equipment and people belongs to this market and is not in the figure: none of those loads has a published tariff, and an invented number is worth no more than none. And what is counted does not add to the sand niche: it is the same USD 850 M seen from the truck rather than from the tonne.
The number rests on a few variables. The formula shows how it moves when each one changes; and each variable carries its freshness seal — how often it is worth revisiting. estim
The price stopped being our own calculation: one source publishes the five legs of the tonne —USD 22 at the Ibicuy quarry, 70 of long haul, 15 of drying, 27 of last mile and 10 of pumping— and another puts the haulage business at some USD 850 M a year; both reach the same number without knowing each other.⚠️ With two caveats we prefer to write down. The first: those USD 145 are the price of the Entre Ríos route, where the bulk of the volume comes from —between 70% and 87% depending on the source—; the rest travels from closer quarries and costs less, so the total is an order of magnitude and not a figure to the million. The second is about the truck counts circulating in the press: the ones published «per day» mix the whole basin's logistics with the sand's, and one of them presents an entire fleet as if it were a daily count. The fleet that is measured is 4,000 to 4,300 trucks assigned to sand haulage, at six trips a month.What remains our own estimate is how much of those USD 850 M a new entrant can capture.
Coverage: the CNRT's official series of tonnes carried by rail, which has its own category for frac sand, and the public registry of Certified Neuquén Suppliers under Ley 3338, counted in full: 1,029 companies, 161 of them in «Logistics and transport» · Sep 14, 2026 · not reviewed: that registry is not the universe of supply: of the six hauliers that concentrate YPF's sand tenders only one appears in the logistics category, the largest is classified in another category and four do not appear because they are from other provinces
How to cite this figure: Despegue (2026). Logistics and transport (trucks, multimodal) · Neuquén. despegueargentina.com/en/neuquen/logistica-transporte-multimodal · terms of use
Neighbouring markets5 markets in the same group, from USD 7 to USD 800 M a year
See the remaining 2 neighbouring markets
Electric power and infrastructure for the basin~USD 230 M - 430 MMonitoring, reporting and verification (MRV/LDAR) of methane and GHG~USD 7M - 18MWe look at what your company does and tell you whether we see a sign that it fits this market, with the evidence behind it. If we do not see one, we say so too and name the condition that would change it. One page as a dated PDF, within 48 working hours.
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