Jet propulsion
It's a long trip from refinery to tanks for fuel powering planes at airport
It's a long trip from refinery to tanks for fuel powering planes at airport

By Jennifer Palmer

Published: June 12, 2008

Jet fuel has been in the news a lot lately, especially when there is talk about the cost of flying. But when we say "jet fuel,” what exactly do we mean?

Industry experts explain the basics of jet fuel: what it is, where it comes from and what the cost is. This is a story about filling a (really big) tank.

Billions and billions of years ago ... on second thought, maybe we should begin in the present day. Let's start with crude oil.

Crude oil is pumped out of the earth and sent to a refinery. By refining crude oil, a number of products are produced, said Patrick Kelly, a downstream associate at the American Petroleum Institute.

Light gases, such as propane and butane, gasoline and diesel, and kerosene are made from the crude oil, Kelly said. Kerosene then undergoes strict refining standards to become jet fuel.

Diesel and jet fuel are very similar. Theoretically, you could fill the tank of a diesel truck with jet fuel, and it would work. But the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency prohibits it.

You can't, however, run a jet engine on diesel.

Typically, about 10 percent of a barrel (or just more than 4 gallons) of crude oil is produced into jet fuel, said Steve Lott, head of communications for the North American branch of the International Air Transport Association.

The jet fuel that powers airplanes at Will Rogers World Airport travels by underground pipeline from the ConocoPhillips refinery in Ponca City, said Karie Jones, unit operations supervisor for fuel storage at the airport.

Fuel batches are stored at the airport in large, above-ground tanks.

"The city of Oklahoma City operates the fuel facility and is responsible for making sure quality fuel is available to the individual airlines at all times,” Jones said.

A truck transports fuel from the storage facility to each airplane needing to be fueled. Hundreds or thousands of gallons of fuel could be pumped into an aircraft, depending on size, luggage weight, passenger load, weather conditions and the distance the aircraft will be traveling, Jones said.

A barrel of jet fuel cost $168 last week, nearly $30 more than a barrel of crude oil, Lott said. Airlines pay different prices regionally for jet fuel, and are often able to choose which company to buy from, just the way gasoline consumers do.

At Will Rogers World Airport, airlines purchase fuel directly from ConocoPhillips at a certain price. Each time one of their airplanes is fueled, the amount of fuel is deducted from their contract amount, Jones said.

Many airlines purchase fuel by hedging. That means they lock in the price for future deliveries of fuel.

"Airline schedules make fuel demand predictable. They know how much they will consume,” Lott said.

Industry experts are exploring new types of fuel for planes, such as biofuels like algae or coconut oil, Lott said. There have already been a couple of test flights and more are planned.

Comments