Thursday, August 25, 2016

Challenges In Crude Oil Transportation

By Stephanie Patterson


The petroleum industry has seen many difficulties in transporting of crude oil from the port or oil well to the refineries. The challenges are random regardless the method of transporting that has been utilized. The increased production and demand for this commodity has led to increased challenges in crude oil transportation which if not brought under control promptly, they will end up causing accidents that are fatal.

The four main means of transportation are railway, pipeline, trucks and water tankers. These methods have been in the industry with the experts stating that these methods can never be replaced despite the challenges faced, they still serve the industry well in different capacities. More so, there are instances that they complement each other making transportation swiftly.

If you want to ensure that the oil is moved from one place to another without facing any disturbances, then it is advisable to use the pipeline which has been using for a very long time. However, it is extremely slow as compared to the railway. More so, spillages cannot be detected in good time since the pipes are underground where no one can be able to see making the spillage adverse.

In the event of water carriages, there are the water tankers which are very suitable for carrying large thousands of gallons of the commodity in just a single trip over very long distances. The problem associated with this mode is that the oil spillage experienced in the past years have been tough to handle and control. More so, this mode cannot be used in places with no water bodies.

The railway is a unique mode of shipping this commodity since it can carry considerable large amounts of it over long distances at considerable short periods of time. However, there is a difficulty of frequent accidents that have been facing this transporting mode. In most cases, such accidents lead to explosions that cause a fire.

In the process of ensuring that the product is very much secure, most companies prefer to hide the details of the route the train will be taking so that terrorists and any threats finds it hard to get it on the road. However, when an accident occurs, emergency responders get a hard time to locate the area of the accident something that is attributed to more deaths and property destroyed.

The use of road trucks is very common but the most dangerous. This is because they are very close to the general public making accidents associated to it very fatal. More so, most roads are not designed to accommodate these trucks that are why collisions are frequent. Truck drivers at times may end up over speeding jeopardizing the safety of many due to explosions and fires that destroy property and ends lives.

These challenges are very real and at the same time extremely dangerous since this product is highly flammable. It is thus at the hands of the necessary stakeholders to come up with extreme safety measures that can be put in place to ensure that the product reaches the destination without affecting anyone negatively on the way. Technology should be placed in time to curb some of the challenges that can be avoided.




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