Physical Flow: From Oil Field to Gas Pump

To obtain the oil we use, hundreds of billions of dollars worth of infrastructure are necessary.

Location First geologists need to locate an oil field.

Drilling Secondly, petroleum companies must drill for oil, which requires multi million dollar oil rigs.

Pumping If the oil field is large enough and has the right characteristics then companies set up drills and pumps.

Oil Pipelines After that, the oil is pumped through pipelines, some of them hundreds of miles long.

Shipping (Oil Tankers) Most oil is pumped through pipelines to terminals, where it is pumped onto oil tankers.

Refineries At oil refineries, the crude oil is “cracked” or refined, into a variety of products, such as gasoline or diesel.

Shipping (Gas Trucks) From the refineries, other pipelines, or gasoline trucks, transport the oil products to final retail distributors.

Gas Stations Gasoline stations are the final distributor at the end of a very long production system