It’s fortuitous to find an oil well and strike it rich; just think how good the Beverly Hillbillies had it. But, if you have no way to bring your product to market, or in the case of bubbling crude – the refinery – then it isn’t worth anything. If you have a crude oil well out in the middle of nowhere, how will you ever get the crude to the pipeline? That’s part of the issue that Americans have had when looking for new sources of oil at home. America is on the list of top ten countries with the most oil reserves. A fairly recent find is the Bakken oil play located in North Dakota. Part of the oil play also extends into eastern Montana and the territories of Saskatchewan and Manitoba in Canada. The Bakken oil play is more than a thousand miles from the nearest pipeline connec-tion. So, what’s a millionaire to do? If the refinery or pipeline infrastructure isn’t near you, you must go to it.
As the price of foreign oil continues to climb, Americans have had to find new ways – and use some tried and true ways – of transporting crude oil.