The Soviet Union contains the world's largest supply of crude energy resources; transporting these resources from production to consumption sites over the sixth-largest landmass in the world presents persistent and serious problems for the Soviet Union. Using 1980 as a base year (the most recent year for which reasonably complete statistics are available), an energy-transportation system for each of the main energy resources (natural gas, petroleum, refined products, coal, and electricity) is modeled as an abstract network of production and demand sites, and transport linkages. Applying a network allocation model to each abstracted system supplies information that determines the general pattern of movement for each energy form, identifies inefficiency-producing constraints in the transportation system, and evaluates the prospects for future development.
