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The problem is not the road.

It is prohibitely expensive to move things using trailers vs. freight.

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If they're literally shipping just fuel, wouldn't the transporting cost almost be free?

You cannot burn your fuel and then sell it.

Also ... hmm ... trailers don't work with unrefined oil ...


Trailers work with unrefined oil. There isn’t much difference between a truck trailer and an oil tanker car on the railway.

Difference is size and cost per unit to move it. We are talking about Middle East light sweet crude oil here, not Alberta’s oil sands or whatnot which does require some processing and heating even before sending it through a pipeline.

North Dakota currently sends a few trainloads of crude oil directly from the fields to refiners 50 miles away from me today. Tanker trucks do routes picking up a few dozen barrels per rig every few days/weeks/months in low producing areas of the country.


>Trailers work with unrefined oil.

No.



Those engines aren't used in trains through. They are used in boats.

A large industrial diesel engine is about the size of a house and displacement is measured in cubic meters.


No. Large industrial oro marine diesel engines are not truck engines.

The engine isn't in the trailer. That is in the tractor, which pulls a trailer.

If OP meant "fueled by unrefined oil" then sure, but I didn't even consider that to be an option.

The heavier crude grades cannot be (realistically, at least) put into trailers or tanker cars - which is what I thought was being implied here for the Gulf oil sources.




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