User:Vragov/sandbox

Petroleum transport is the transportation of petroleum and derivatives such as gasoline (petrol). Petroleum is transported via rail cars, trucks, tanker vessels, and through pipelines. Which method is used to move this oil depends on the amount that is being moved and where it is being moved to. The biggest problems with moving this oil are pollution and the chance that the oil can spill. Petroleum oil is very hard to clean up and is very toxic to living animals.

Pipelines
Pipelines are used to transport oil from the wells to refineries and storage facilities. Pipelines are viewed as the most cost efficient way to move oil on land. First the oil is collected at the wellhead, or some area where the oil is stored. From the wellhead it is pumped across the land through a pipe, and is discharged at its destination which typically is a refinery. However, pipelines can be used the same way to deliver already refined fuels such as gasoline, diesel and even jet fuel from the refinery to distribution facilities or a consumer. These pipelines are not just a solid line of straight pipe, but have various components on the pipeline. These pipelines will have booster pumps to keep the fuel moving along a long distance, inspection areas to make sure that the fuel is not getting any contaminants, and even other collection and delivery points along the way. Though it costs a lot of money and time to set up these pipelines, the operation cost is significantly less than using any other type of transportation. Also the amount of manpower needed to move this oil is not that much. Pipelines offer the most efficient mode of transporting this oil across a land mass. Even though these pipes are extremely cost effective there are some circumstances where this is not true and it is more logical to use another method. An example of this is how it is cheaper and more logical to use a ship to move the oil across the Atlantic Ocean than a pipeline.

Rail cars
Tank cars are another way to move crude oil across a landmass. The oil is loaded into the tank cars, and are moved by a diesel train across the rails to the refinery or the trains planned destination. Trains can carry a mass amount of this oil by using of multiple tank cars. Though each rail car holds a lot less oil than a large marine tanker vessel, when multiple are used a lot of oil can be transported. For example, the DOT-111 tank car is a very common tank car and can hold 34500 USgal. If ten tank cars were pulled the train would be carrying 345000 USgal of oil, so the amount of volume increases rapidly. The locomotive used to pull these rail cars have a massive amount of horsepower and can be hooked up with other locomotives to increase the horsepower, making the rail car a fairly cost effective way to move this oil. These railcars just like the pipelines can be used to carry a refined fuel instead of crude oil from a refinery to a distributing plant. Railcars are a common way to move this fuel a long distance to areas where they do not have pipelines set up.