Gas pipelines are not new to Virginia, but they gained significance after German U-boats interrupted oil shipments by sea in World War II. In 1950, natural gas was delivered to Virginia by the Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line (TRANSCO)Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line (TRANSCO, acquired by Williams in 1995). The Water and Gas Distribution Department of Danville switched from coal-generated gas to pipeline-supplied natural gas, when the pipeline came through the region.
Now, Loudoun County is a junction of pipelines supplying natural gas from Texas and Cove Point, Maryland. Cove Point is the terminal for importing Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) from overseas. After the 1973 energy crisis, the pipelines could not ship a sufficient supply of natural gas from Texas to the Northeast. After a great deal of debate, an LNG terminal was finally constructed in Maryland. There were high expectations that natural gas from Algeria would become a major source of energy, but the economics of the energy business changed and domestic supplies were sufficient to meet the US demand. At the start of the 21st Century, demand for natural gas outstripped supply again, and new focus was placed on LNG ports.
Pumping stations located every 20-100 mile push oil through the pipelines from Texas to Virginia. The petroleum products move at 3 to 8 miles per hour, so oil pumped from below the floor of the Gulf of Mexico could be processed and sold in Virginia within a month of extraction.1 In the pipeline, diesel may be separated from premium gasoline or jet fuel by spheres that flow with the product through the pipes. If the products are piped without a physical separator, some mixing will occur at the boundary in the pipe. The "transmix" will be separated and sold as a lower-value product at the destination.