Central oil storage
Central oil storage (COS), or central storage, is the term used for a communal heating system that began to be utilized in the middle of the twentieth century. The term also applies to industrial, plant and agricultural applications, all of which may or may not be communal in nature. Household applications The concept involved using oil (usually kerosene, but sometimes gas oil), in the way that natural gas is used today – it being fed from a central source and metered into individual dwellings on a housing estate. The concept was utilized by major oil companies such as Shell and BP. Each household was obliged to use their oil from their tank, unlike the situation where a consumer owns their own tank obtains their own oil. The book Introduction to Architectural Science states about liquid fuel storage tanks, "often in a housing development a central storage tank is installed (usually underground) which will be filled by an oil company", and that a supply of liquid fuel is piped to individual apartments or houses from the central storage tank. Logistics Oil would be delivered by road tanker and discharged into a tank capable of holding, for example, 5000 gallons. This oil