Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 August 1876 — An Oil Pipe Three Hundred Miles Long. [ARTICLE]

An Oil Pipe Three Hundred Miles Long.

The Pennsylvania Transportation Company, of which Mr. Henry Harley is president, has been chartered by the State of Pennsylvania for the purpose of transporting oil from the oil regions to the principal Atlantic seaboard cities. The plan proposed is to rim the oil through a four inch pipe laid on the surface; the forcing power will be 900 pounds to the square inch; there are to be stations at distances of fifteen miles, at each end of which an engine of a 100 horse power will be erected to work a pump to continue the flow from point to point. The Company having decided upon the construction of the work, the president sought the services of Gen. Herman Haupt. He pronounced the scheme, after a thorough examination, to be entirely practicable, and is now acting as cngineer-in-chief. In view of the enormous product of oil in this country—Bo,ooo barrels per day—and the rank it now holds among the leading articles of export, coupled with the exorbitant charges for railroad carriage from the wells to the seaboard, by the completion of the enterprise and its successful operation a complete revolution will be accomplished in the handling of this article. As a proof of how valuable this traffic has been to the several railroads over which the oil has . been borne, it is only necessary to say that up to the present time the railroad charges aggregate $79,000,000. The minimum cost of transporting oil by rail is fifty cents per barrel, and the minimum cost by the pipe process is sixteen cents. The average, charge by rail is $1.25, , The estimated cost of the entire work, including fixtures, etc., is $1,250,000; and considering the difference in cost between this method and that by rail, upon the hypothesis that the Company will discount at least twenty-five cents a barrel on rail rates, it will readily be seen that, with all the expenses of operating, the first'year's earnings will pay the first cost of the work. The Pennsylvania Company is the parent company, but there is also the Baltimore Transportation Company,' chartered by the State of Maryland, anti some five other companies are expecting to unite. The first objective point or terminus will be /Baltimore, as being the most feasible and direct route for the pipes, following which other termini will be established in Philadelphia, New York, etc. ' ' The pipes being laid on the surface, and there being no obstacle in the way of forcing the oil to any height, the line will literally be an air line, and the distance from the,oil regions to Baltimore is 300

miles. The oil will be distributed from the pipes into immense reservoirs, with refining extaLlishments adjacent. Of course the whole railroad system will oppose it, for it is taking from them a traffic from the very nature of which there could be no competition; but the advantage to the oil producers, who will have the entire control, will be immense, and the advantages which will accrue from such facilities to this important branch of our export commerce will be incalculable. 1 The feasibility of this enterprise, so far as the passage of the oil through pipes is concerned, has been fully established by the present system in operation in the oil regions, where the aggregate length of the pipes conveying the oil from the several wells to the reservoirs is nearly 250 miles. —Bunion Traveller.