4 ms·

About $10 per metric ton end customer price (wholesale, CFR), if anyone's interested.

by throwaway519 2y ago

dkasper 2y ago
Sand is heavy af. A ton is only like 20 cubic feet. Still… that’s not very much money.
- lostlogin 2y ago
  My eye is twitching remembering a fiasco where someone ordered concrete assuming 1 cubic metre required 1 ton of concrete. Ever since that I’ve assumed it’s about 2.5 tons per cubic metre. This works much better.
  - blackguardx 2y ago
    But concrete is measured by volume at least in the US (cubic yards…sigh). I think this is because different mix designs can change the resulting weight. I’ve even heard of adding air to make for better pumping.
    - SECProto 2y ago
      Air entrainment is critical for freeze-thaw protection, so any exposed concrete in places that have below freezing should have 5-6% air entrained.
    - lostlogin 2y ago
      The bags of ingredients at the hardware store are usually 20-25kgs here, and labelled that way. It’s a silly way to buy a lot of concrete, but does help someone without a tow bar.
locusofself 2y ago
how can anyone possibly make money off of that with transport costs and labor?
- throwaway519 2y ago
  A big slow barge can carry $200-500k, depening on how big the barge is. That's a fair amount of cash. From there, you've got 40-100 truck runs from wherever the barge unloads to wherever the sand's in use, assuming you can't run the barge straight to the customer. Again, that's not a huge amount +to the CFR above. Above using barge capacity of 20-50k tons, and truck capacity 50 ton.
- bboygravity 2y ago
  In case of the Chinese, when I was at sea, I heard stories of massive prisoner ships that are essentially used for slave-labour at-sea. That time it was for fishing (massive mother ship with smaller, still huge ships spreading out to empty out the seas in waters very far away from China). If they would engage in sand stealing, the prisoner slaves might help keep the labour cost down.

About $10 per metric ton end customer price (wholesale, CFR), if anyone's interested.

dkasper 2y ago

Sand is heavy af. A ton is only like 20 cubic feet. Still… that’s not very much money.

lostlogin 2y ago
My eye is twitching remembering a fiasco where someone ordered concrete assuming 1 cubic metre required 1 ton of concrete. Ever since that I’ve assumed it’s about 2.5 tons per cubic metre. This works much better.
- blackguardx 2y ago
  But concrete is measured by volume at least in the US (cubic yards…sigh). I think this is because different mix designs can change the resulting weight. I’ve even heard of adding air to make for better pumping.
  - SECProto 2y ago
    Air entrainment is critical for freeze-thaw protection, so any exposed concrete in places that have below freezing should have 5-6% air entrained.
  - lostlogin 2y ago
    The bags of ingredients at the hardware store are usually 20-25kgs here, and labelled that way. It’s a silly way to buy a lot of concrete, but does help someone without a tow bar.

locusofself 2y ago

how can anyone possibly make money off of that with transport costs and labor?

throwaway519 2y ago
A big slow barge can carry $200-500k, depening on how big the barge is. That's a fair amount of cash. From there, you've got 40-100 truck runs from wherever the barge unloads to wherever the sand's in use, assuming you can't run the barge straight to the customer. Again, that's not a huge amount +to the CFR above. Above using barge capacity of 20-50k tons, and truck capacity 50 ton.
bboygravity 2y ago
In case of the Chinese, when I was at sea, I heard stories of massive prisoner ships that are essentially used for slave-labour at-sea. That time it was for fishing (massive mother ship with smaller, still huge ships spreading out to empty out the seas in waters very far away from China). If they would engage in sand stealing, the prisoner slaves might help keep the labour cost down.