Pipeline 101
Storage Tanks

North Slope crude is shipped 800 miles through the trans-Alaska pipeline from Prudhoe Bay to the Valdez Marine Terminal (VMT) at the ice-free port of Valdez in Prince William Sound. From there, it is routed to storage tanks or loaded directly onto tankers and shipped to market. The VMT has two active loading berths and is North America’s largest oil-loading terminal. The 1,000-acre facility includes 18 storage tanks that can hold a combined total of 9.18 million barrels of oil. The cylindrical tanks are 63 feet tall, 250 feet in diameter and cover about 49,000 square feet, just bigger than the area of a football field.