U.S. Refineries
According to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, there are 140 operable refineries in the United States, and at their maximum capacity are able to process 19,134,102 barrels of crude oil per day — and a subset of 4,297,181 barrels of diesel fuel per day and 2,727,384 barrels of gasoline per day.
The refinery location map shown above might provide some insight as to one’s own proximity to where ‘gas comes from’. From the refineries the fuel is transported closer to population centers to facilitate service stations (gas stations), but there’s more to the story…
Imagine a world which has entered tumultuous times in which channels of distribution have been severely disrupted (for whatever the cause or reason), and then imagine the disruption of fuel (gas) while the degree of difficulty in transporting fuel might become significant…
When you see a tanker truck carrying fuel around or offloading at a gas service station, the gasoline or diesel product has most likely been shipped from a ‘terminal’ where the tanker trucks fill up.
Terminals are just a collection of storage tanks and truck offloading facilities that enable convenient resupply of local gas stations. An oil refinery produces gasoline, diesel, and other petroleum products and will transport them underground through pipelines to these terminals. Tanker trucks can then load products from these terminals and distribute fuel to various service stations (gas stations).
While the terminals may be located near population centers and highways, depending on where you live there might not be a terminal very nearby. During a disruptive period, it might be interesting to note your proximity to the various terminals to appreciate the potential difficulty of transportation during a breakdown of distribution.
There are some parts of the country where gasoline (or diesel) needs to be transported significant distances to reach the consumer.
Map of gasoline terminals in the United States:
Fuel terminal locations map (North)
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Fuel terminal locations map (South)
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Fuel terminal locations map (West)
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According to your response from a recent post question, When The System Crashes, What Item Will You Have Most Difficulty Re-Supplying?, Fuel (gas, diesel, etc..) is among the top-three.
This inspired today’s post which I thought to discover maps to indicate where the gas comes from before reaching your local service stations.
You might also be curious to re-read the following article, When The Trucks Stop, It’s Over.
Similar to the flow of electricity, gasoline is a life-blood of our modern existence. We take it for granted that there will always be gas at our local gas station.
For your feedback, I’m curious to hear examples of circumstances which might slow, disrupt, damage, or collapse the distribution chains of fuel…
For your interest, the largest three refineries in the United States are located in Port Arthur Texas, Baytown Texas, and Garyville Louisiana. They have a combined total crude oil processing capacity of 1,682,750 barrels per day.
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There are so many links in that chain, where do I begin? Just the power grid going down will bring that whole process to a halt. No way to refine, no way to pump. Even if the trucks could get the gas, oil to its destination with no electricity there is no way to pump it. You would be better off planning alternatives to transportation other than motorized vehicles. Rural areas will see a return to horse power, most everyone else will be stuck with walking or if your lucky enough, bicycles.
We store gas, but I know that is a short term solution that will carry us for 30 to 60 days if we are frugal. People who expect to rely on generators will also find themselves at a dead end eventually.
To PG,
You might consider getting a flammable Liquid rated hand operated pump with a dip suction pipe of varying lengths because most gas storage tanks are under ground and vary in depth that they are buried. Also pay attention to lower pipe slowly to ensure the end doesn’t puncture the tank bottom because most tanks now are fiberglass. Dont forget to use a grounding wire when in use and having another person with a large properly rated fire extinguisher.
Most access points to the gas will be locked so getting access from the owner/operator will be required. Also others seeing that you have this pump may attract some unwanted attention. Ordered my pump from Harbor Freight for less than $100.00. Wouldn’t hurt to wear some fire retardant clothing also!!!
Stay Safe!!
Anyone who was driving in the late 70’s should know better than to take fuel for granted. I remember 2 hour waits in lines and having to deal with odd and even days. Oh and how about the 10 gl maximum they were doing for a while,at least in California. I was driving a 68 roadrunner at that time that got about 8 miles to the gallon. Fortunately there was a 24 hour gas station by where I lived and I worked nights so I would go fill up at 2 in the morning when there was very little traffic.
Sure do, I was in San Diego at the time. It was bad, fights for a tank of gas, and a couple of shootings as I remember. People would wait in line for hours with a 10 gallon limit. Also the odd or even days you had to match with your license plate to buy fuel. Lucky I had a “commercial” plate and could get anytime with no limit, kept the wife’s car toped off all the time, and would check on my parents.
If it hits, you ain’t seen nada yet my friends. If you don’t have it you wont get it.
Oil will still be there, even though everything goes nuts. I wonder what the smallest refinery would be like? I mean, forgetting all the additives, can a mini-refinery be imagined? One which is capable of creating usable gas to run simple gas engines? Can one create a process to transform crude into gas, which can be manufactured in one’s backyard? Forget the EPA, can one build a personal tiny refining system?
Many examples of Germans, French, etc converting gas engines to alcohol/wood/steam in occupied areas during WW2. Learn from the past.
Check this out. Over 1 million built during the war:
http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2010/01/wood-gas-cars.html
Excellent article Cossack55. Thanks for providing the link. As difficult as this would be to build, I feel its more viable than trying to acquire what will become very limited in short order, such as gas.
I don’t know if he was pulling our leg, but a friends’ dad told us during WWII they had two fuel tanks installed and a switching valve to go from gas to diesel once the engine got going. I don’t know how a spark plug would survive that, or the if the different compression ratios…
If gas supplies were interrupted that would not affect the supply of natural gas, which a vehicle can be converted to operate on.
The theme of this topic is to live close to a refinery, or source of distribution, but priority of need (in the eyes of the government) would supersede close proximity. In the event of an attack on fuel sources, it would be best to be not so close. I’ll say the best bet is to be at a distance and to stock up and look like you’re fuel-less just like everybody else if & when things go down.
When the gas stations are dark, stand in front of them with the rest of the crowd with your gas cans and make the loudest noise so that everybody knows that guy ain’t got no gas.
I agree with fuel, and pretty much all other things, is best to look like you do not have any/are worse off than whoever is coming to your door.
I heard a story once, about a poor but hard working farm family, during the depression. They had on their very oldest “rags” as it was a big work/cleaning/chore day. (bunch of kids and Mom). The charity lady came to the door to collect clothing for the destitute in the area/traveling through the area. She took one look at the rag tag clothes, and excused herself to return with a box of clothing donations for the family.
if the shtf in a big way, might be the way to “look”.
The John Deere tractors, prior to and after WWII (they stopped manufacture of new tractors during the war), came from the factory with two fuel tanks. Your friend was correct that they started on gasoline and you could switch to either diesel or kerosene after it warmed up. Most owners used kerosene as it was cheaper. I actually owned one of these. You had to manually close off the gas valve while opening the alternative fuel valve. Once running on diesel or kerosene, you could only stop the engine by turning off the fuel to the engine.
The theme was not intended to be that of living close to a refinery or terminal (many of them are in population dense regions), but it was to illustrate part of the distribution chain and one’s potential distance from terminals – which may become a factor during a breakdown. Therefore pointing out the notion of preparing in this area (fuel) – examining one’s own backup or storage, or ways to deal with a supply chain disruption, etc…
seems like if one is “well prepped”, it might be much better NOT to live close to these …
-case of fire/explosion/sabotage, not a good place to be close to
-case of shtf, there will be hoards of others heading for them
-etc
At the heart of it, a refinery is basically a giant still. Unfortunately, based on the complexity of crude oil, I don’t think it’s even possible to make a home-scale refinery. A town-scale refinery that serves a couple thousand people should be doable; I think that was about the size they had when gas powered automobiles were invented.
However, if you go beyond gasoline/petroleum, there is a fuel source where the technology to produce fuel on a home scale is very mature: alcohol. The trick there is getting an engine that works on 100% alcohol; then it is okay to have a little water in it, so you can run it on 190 proof, which is the best you can get from a still. Any mixture with gasoline has to be completely water-free, which requires further chemical processing.
The other option is diesel. Older diesel engines can run on straight vegetable oil; newer ones may need some modification to be able to do that. Or you can react the vegetable oil with alcohol and lye to get biodiesel that should work in any engine. The major problem here is that starch crops for alcohol are much easier to grow than oil crops for biodiesel.
In any case, the less you need, the better.
seems I read some where than a very old engine can run on quite an unusual assortment of “stuff”,
including moonshine
I’m from North Alabama. When the south saw a significant tornado outbreak a couple years ago. Our power was down for a week. TVA main lines down in Huntsville knocked out the whole grid from the Tennessee state line knocked out power down to Clanton (south of Birmingham, 2/3 of the state) I believe. One went straight through the center of my hometown torn up everything. With this roads were impassable by vehicle for two days in town. EMA and Police were on strict fuel conserve orders after 24 hours. Folks here banded together, churches set up relief centers and emergency shelters. Everybody grabbed a chainsaw and started the cleanup. Heck, when the Red Cross brought all their “Red Tape” in the Mayor pretty much told them to go to the Civic center and keep their mouth shut. Us it didn’t effect all that much. We live out in the sticks and are used to it. However, while the lack of police and and EMA wasn’t a big deal here, it could have been a serious issue in Huntsville, Birmingham, and Tuscaloosa had the power been out in those areas much longer (I think they were out for 3 days). Within that little time there were food lines, water lines, and “somebody help us!!” garbage in those areas. I think there was definitely a bullet dodged by getting the fuel system back up and going in three days for those cities. Most station owners had there pumps up on backup genys within 24 hours but there was no delivery for three days after the pumps ran dry on what they had. Grocery stores took cash but shelves were bare within 24 hours. There were even a couple news stations off air because the generators ran out of fuel.
Really is a fragile system we have here folks. Best to take care of yourself.
I live outside Tuscaloosa. I was here when the tornado came through in 2011. One of those refineries is here in Tuscaloosa. They have back up power using propane generators. I am not sure about keeping the refinery operational, but I believe they could load trucks if the trucks could get there. Problem was getting in oil to process.
Parts of Tuscaloosa were without power for a week. One section of town had no drinkable water for a couple of weeks because he tornado damaged the water holding tanks. There are still parts of town that are mostly wiped clean. Town is about rebuilt. But town looks very different than it did the day before the tornado.
It does not take much to bring everything down. And rebuilding takes longer than one would expect.
There’s not much we as citizens can do aside from being reactive when it comes to fuel shortages. Even those who have prepared with storage to some degree, including myself, will eventually run out of fuel. It’s a somewhat sheepish state of being, sadly.
All that aside, I’m sure that these 140 sites and their suppliers are part of a Gov’t think tank study somewhere that is tasked to assess the overall risks associated with our domestic system based on priority|value to the fuel distribution chains…
Government think tank????? Hmmmmmmmm.
I know, I know…
It’s an oxymoron like the military intelligence community. I’ll even chuckle with you on that one!
We currently live in the Inter mountain West. We are about 20 minutes north of two smaller refineries located in the SLC, Utah area. One of our major concerns is that the intercontinental railway system runs two parallel lines through a small canyon adjacent to the I-84 canyon route as well. Any small earthquake will disrupt all rail traffic and OTR traffic through that area for months or until sufficient infrastructure can be brought in to make the necessary repairs.
There are several smaller rail crossings that would also come down severely impacting the west coast and western states refineries ability to receive and refine crude.
While it is “nice” to know where the major terminals are, we must also be mindful of where their transmission pipelines run, and how vulnerable THEY are to disruption via natural disasters, attacks and theft when things start really going south economically. I see petroleum products as being more valuable than precious metals when the time comes.
I remain disgusted at the Federal government’s inability to do anything with efficiency, effectiveness or in any manner remotely resembling anything that is profitable for the taxpayers. Good article.
What would Mad Max do?
Friends will have to work together. I just helped an old boy (80’s) out by giving him some .22 LR. My area is still dry, none to be had in the stores.
So, now his varmints are now in trouble!
BI
When the fuel stops being delivered there will still be fuel around. One just has to know where it is and how to get it. There’s quite a few ‘external fuel pumps’ available. Speedmaster has one thats 140 GPH, 12 VDC, 3/8 NPT in/out, at 14 PSI. Put the “out” hose in your gas tank and the “in” hose in a place that has fuel and you now have solved the lack of “motion lotion” problem. Might want a few lookouts posted also.
And, OBTW, if you know where to look, ‘drip gas’ is still a by product in the refining processes. Need to add a little oil to it because it isn’t quite the same as what EXXON, etc., sell at the pumps. Haven’t tried it in a long time, but I bet the ‘drip spigot’ is still around.
That sure is an interesting idea regarding a do-it-yourself ‘fuel extractor’ for ‘just in case’. I found this particular Holley Electric Fuel Pump – 140 GPH that would also get the job done… just need to adapt hose to the fittings and integrate the 12VDC power source connection.
Has anyone considered weaning yourself from the nozzle now, while there is still time? Blessings PS: @Poorman, yes I remember those gas lines and odd, even days very well. My driver’s license almost expired in Atlanta while trying to get to the pump.
I had to chuckle at your comment at the end. Your right though, the best alternative is to wean oneself from what will be impossible to acquire in the very near future I fear. Speaking of which, I have been watching a fairly new show on tv lately called, “The Last Alaskans”. The government designated a large portion of Alaska as “The Artic Preserve”. The area is said to be about the size of South Carolina. There remains only 7 cabins in the preserve. There are no roads or electricity in the preserve. When the families eventually die, the cabins will be reclaimed by nature. Although some use snowmobiles to get around, they live without electricity. The more independent you become from technology the better off you will be in the long run.
This topic covers the locations of refineries and distribution centers, another important factor is the route from the refinery to the distribution center and then to individual gas stations. This is of fairly high concern to me as the railroad is immediately adjacent to our favorite get-out-of-town campground and not that far from where we live. We have sat at the campground and watched 50-70 tankers in one train after another go by. We have had a number of questions about would happen, what we would have to do in the event of a derailment. But I do have to add that we have also noted that there has been a significant and noticeable increase in surveillance by the railroad of their operations in recent years. But a derailment would not result in any fuel shortage, if that were the cargo, but it would mean a speedy immediate evacuation. Like leaving the campground NOW and if at home, gone in 60 seconds.
I work in rail logistics for a major chemical company. Derailments happen quite frequently. A major derailment of tank cars carrying oil would mean a large fire. I believe there was a decent sized derailment of tank cars carrying oil in West Virginia a few months back. A whole community had to evacuate because of the fires. One tank car hit into a house.