Comparison of operational energy intensities and consumption of pipelines versus coastal tankers: US Gulf coast to northeast coast routes

This report is a comparative analysis of operational energy intensities and consumption for pipeline shipments versus coastal tanker and tanker-barge movements of light petroleum products from the US Gulf Coast to US East Coast Mid-Atlantic states. It has been prepared for the Office of Transportation Programs of the US Department of Energy (DOE) as part of a project designed to develop energy conservation strategies in the areas of modal shifts and energy materials transport. It also answers an expressed interest of DOE's Office of Competition as to whether energy penalties are being paid in this region by the shipment of this oil by tanker rather than pipeline. Detailed estimates are made of the 1977 energy intensities (EIs) for tankers and the two major pipelines serving these routes; these are the Colonial pipeline (from Houston) and the Plantation pipeline (from Baton Rouge). Estimates of potential operational energy savings gained from diverting these shipments from tankers to pipelines are figured from these EIs plus 1977 tanker short-ton volumes for these products. Also estimated for these diversions are additional savings of petroleum available through shifts from the fuel oil used to power tankers, to the other energy sources used by pipelines (e.g., coal, which is burned by the utilities serving them). Table 1 indicates that these tanker volumes have been large and steady as a whole; however, individual origin ports have had substantial variations since the 1973 Arab oil embargo. Indirect energy requirements of the two modes are not included in this analysis because the methodology for calculating them is still an unresolved research area (e.g., diagreements exist as to how much supporting-infrastructure energy usage should be included for a mode)