Refineries have another job. They remove contaminants from the oil. A refinery removes sulfur from gasoline, for example, to increase its efficiency and to reduce air pollution. After processing at the refinery, gasoline and other petroleum products are usually shipped out through pipelines. There are about 230,000 miles of pipeline in the United States.
Pipelines are the safest and cheapest way to move large quantities of petroleum across land.
Pump stations, which are spaced 20 to 100 miles apart along the underground pipelines, keep the petroleum products moving at around five miles per hour. At this rate, it takes 15 days to move a shipment of gasoline from Houston, Texas to New York City. There are 15,000 jobbers in the U.S., and they sell just about everything that comes out of a barrel of crude oil. Jobbers fill bulk orders for petroleum products from gasoline stations, industries, utility companies, farmers, and so on. The final link in the chain is the retailer.