How do they deliver all that jet fuel to airports? Especially airports that are remote, like ones on islands in the ocean. I've always wondered this and never really knew. If you know exactly how any specific airport obtains their fuel, please post.

Thanks,
mls515

During the fuel crisis last year, (refineries were blockaded here in the U.K by farmers protesting over high duty on fuel), people were concerned that flights would be affected.
It was mentioned at the time that BHX has a direct pipeline from a local oil refinery.
I suspect that this is the case with other city airports.

At most major airports, fuel(s) come in via pipeline(s), and they keep on-airport tanks filled with several days of usage. (The recent power crisis in California ended up shutting down the pipeline that delivers fuel to LAS, and they got down to only a couple of days worth of local supplies).

Other methods of re-supplying the airport "tank farm" are trucking it in 8,000 or 9,000 gallons at a time (obviously more-suited to smaller usage airports, or ones where pipelines don't exist), and even by ship/barge. Islands are pretty obvious, but I know that Tampa (TPA) recently had a brief shortage because persistant fog over a few days kept the barges from offloading on schedule, so some "land" airports also depend upon water transport of fuel somewhere in the delivery chain...

Talking about islands, Ibiza´s airport has a pipeline coming from the port area (about 4 miles).Close to the port they are large tanks to store all the fuel (gas, diesel, kerosene...) that the oil tanker brings from the spanish mainland for the island needs. At the airport you can also see fuel tanks for storage.

I suppose on islands the fuel must either be transported by boat from the nearest source, or on specially charted cargo flights, or if the island is big enough there would probably be a small fuel depot(?) that serves the whole island.

Regards EGGD

Hi,
Yeah, as mentioned previously, large airports such as LHR, LGW, MAN, BHX have jet fuel piped to them direct from the refineries. However, I believe that East Midlands does not get it piped directly, as during the fuel crisis last year there were reports that the airport was running out of fuel. So i pressume that fuel is delivered in tankers and stored somewhere if there is not a direct pipeline.
DEM

SFO has a pipeline directly from the TOSCO refinery in Richmond , California, about 45 mile away, that feeds into a tank farm just north of the airport. The pipeline was sut down briefly during the power crisis to save electricity, and fuel was transported in by tanker truck.

At Stockholm/Arlanda (ARN) they transport the fuel from the port in Stockholm by trucks. Sounds quite hazardous, because the go practically through central Stockholm...

Here in Trinidad (POS) trucks are used. The trucks bring the fuel in from the refinery which is about 40km away and there offload it into tanks. Supplies to the planes are pumped from pipelines which run to the tarmac from the tanks. Over in Tobago (TAB) supplies are brought in by ship and offloaded directly to a small tank farm, which also provides storage for other oil products for the local gas stations.

Consideration is being given to a pipeline from the refinery to POS, especially with the new developments there.

Trintocan.

In Oslo the fuel is transported by train from sentral Oslo to OSL. OSL is 50 kilometers north of the city...

Regards

Espen Haavig
OSL-Spotter

Fuel is tankered in to LBA from refineries. I heard a funny comment from someone at the airport once who asked why BP were using tankers to transport air around (the tanker says BP Air on the side, air meaning fuel for air use and not that the tank is full of fresh air!)

When I was at Cold Bay all of our fuel shipments arrived via barge. Typically we would get about 250-500 thousand gallons at a time. Pumps on the barge would move the fuel the two miles from the end of the dock to the tank farm. Originally we had a 12 inch line but that was later reduced to a 4 inch line. This lengthened the time that it took to pump the fuel to the farm. Typically it was in excess of 20 hours of pumping time.

I have a picture of one of the fuel barges somewhere. If I get a chance I scan it in and show yall what they look like.

At Anchorage they used to get fuel from both a pipeline from the port and via rail. The rail shipment point used to be right across the street from the Alaska Airlines building right when you get off the ramp at the domestic terminal. This has been discontinued and all fuel shipments arrive via pipeline. The fuel at the port of Anchorage gets there either from tanker barge or from rail shipments from the refinery at North Pole.

A lot of UK airports including MAN,LHR,LGW,NCL,LBA etc get the jet fuel pumped in directly from refinaries.