Frac Tank Transport and Heavy Haul Shipping From Houston

Frac Tank Transport and Heavy Haul Freight for the Oilfield

A frac tank is a heavy, oversized load before it is anything else. A standard 21,000-gallon steel tank runs about 43 feet long, 8.5 feet wide, and over 11 feet tall empty, which puts it past legal width and height the moment it sits on a trailer. You need a hauler who treats it as a permitted heavy haul, not a flatbed afterthought. Texas International Freight moves frac tanks across Texas, the Lower 48, and overseas, with the trailers, permits, and securing the load demands. What does your move require?

What a Frac Tank Move Involves

Frac tanks store water, brine, and completion fluids at the well site, so they travel between yards, fields, and projects constantly. The tank’s size and weight decide everything downstream. An empty steel frac tank weighs roughly 20,000 to 30,000 pounds, and its height is the constraint that most often forces a low-deck trailer and a route survey. We confirm the exact dimensions and weight before we quote, because a guess on height is what puts a tank under a low bridge.

Trailers and Securing the Load

Most frac tanks ride on a step-deck or a removable-gooseneck lowboy that drops the deck height and keeps the total profile legal or close to it. We winch or crane the tank into place, then block, brace, chain, and strap it to the trailer to standards that hold through hard braking and crosswinds. Blocking and bracing is not a formality on a tank this tall; it is what keeps the center of gravity where it belongs.

Permits, Escorts, and Route Planning

An over-width or over-height tank needs state oversize permits for every jurisdiction it crosses, and often pilot or escort vehicles. We pull the permits, plan the route around low clearances and weight-restricted bridges, and schedule travel for the windows each state allows. Our heavy haul trucking desk runs this work daily across the oil patch.

Domestic and Cross-Border Hauling

We move frac tanks from Houston and the Gulf Coast to fields across Texas, Oklahoma, the Permian, and the wider Lower 48, and we run cross-border loads on the lanes to Mexico and the heavy equipment lanes to Canada. Cross-border tanks add customs paperwork and bonded transit, which we coordinate so the load does not sit at the border.

International Frac Tank Shipping

For overseas projects, a frac tank ships as breakbulk cargo or on a flat rack, loaded at the port with the same lift and securing care it gets on the road. The domestic heavy haul to the terminal, the export filing, and the ocean booking run as one shipment. For a multi-tank or full spread move, our project logistics team keeps the units on one schedule, and cargo insurance covers the value in transit.

Working With Texas International Freight

Frac tanks are part of the larger oil and gas logistics work we run, alongside drilling and oilfield equipment. You get one team that sizes the trailer, pulls the permits, secures the tank, and tracks it to the yard or the port. Send us the tank specs and the route, and we build the plan.