About Petroleum
Shipping Oil Products
After processing at the refinery, gasoline and other petroleum products are usually shipped across the country through pipelines. There are about 230,000 miles of pipelines in the United States. Pipelines are the safest and cheapest way to move large quantities of petroleum across land.
Pump stations, which are spaced 20 to 100 miles apart along the underground pipelines, keep the petroleum products moving at a speed of about five miles per hour. At this rate, it takes 15 days to move a shipment of gasoline from Houston, Texas to New York City.
Distribution
Companies called jobbers handle the wholesale distribution of oil. There are 15,000 jobbers in the U.S., and they sell just about everything that comes out of a barrel of crude oil. Jobbers fill bulk orders for petroleum products from gasoline stations, industries, utility companies, farmers, and other consumers.
The final link in the chain is the retailer. A retailer may be a gasoline station or a home heating oil company. The last link is when you pump gasoline into your car, and the engine converts the gasoline’s chemical energy into mechanical energy to make your car move!
Demand for Oil
Since World War II, petroleum has replaced coal as the United States’ leading source of energy. Petroleum supplies more than 38 percent of the energy used in the United States. (Coal and natural gas each supply about 22 percent of our energy needs.)
Americans use about 18 million barrels of oil (more than 750 million gallons) every day of the year. And experts say we will be using more and more oil, especially for transportation, in the coming years.
Even now, we use 28 percent more oil for transportation than we did in 1973, when the first oil crisis hit the United States. This is true even though today’s automobiles get more than 1.7 times as many miles to the gallon as their 1970s counterparts. There are 60 percent more vehicles on the road today than in 1973. Today, we use about two out of every three barrels of oil to keep us on the move.
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