Oil Pipeline Industry
By Offshore Jobs | Category: Oil and Gas Industry
The oil pipeline industry is a very important part of the oil and gas field because it makes possible for the oil to get to the refiners from remote locations or offshore ones. This is the most convenient method in what concerns the price and the safety levels to carry all around the world the oil or gas pumped out of the ground: through an extended network of pipelines.
The pipeline companies are in constant need of workers and professionals, so if you want to build a career in the oil industry, this sector is definitely a good start. The biggest pipeline network in the world in the Oil and Gas industry can be found in the United States: over 200,000 miles of pipeline supervised and maintained by many pipeline firms.
* Building pipelines is an expensive process if we consider the investments made to build an oil tanker. The fact is that in time, the tankers will require additional costs such as fuel costs, staff salaries and maintenances costs, but they are great for offshore transportation. In what concerns the onshore oil transportation, than the pipelines are the most convenient method.
The pipeline system is a complicated one and is monitored by sophisticated electronic equipment. The pipelines usually have 3 feet diameter but the underwater ones are smaller and can be unrolled on barges.
When it comes to what’s within the pipelines, we must specify that the pipeline operators don’t own what passes along the network of pipelines they administrate.
* The shipping company is able to contract a certain space, and the pipeline companies are not allowed to make any discrimination, just give space to the first one who asks for.
* The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission governs all the conditions and the rates for such contracts regarding the interstate pipeline networks.
An important issue in the oil pipeline industry is the security of the pipelines, which must be assured in order to avoid any spills that might damage the environment. This issue was taken care of by the pipeline companies and the results are noticeable by the fact that today the oil spills have decreased by almost 60% compared to the 1970 period.
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