<Tr> <Th> Diameter </Th> <Td> 48 in (1,219 mm) </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> No. of pumping stations </Th> <Td> 12 </Td> </Tr> <P> The Trans - Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) includes the trans - Alaska crude - oil pipeline, 11 pump stations, several hundred miles of feeder pipelines, and the Valdez Marine Terminal . TAPS is one of the world's largest pipeline systems . It is commonly called the Alaska pipeline, trans - Alaska pipeline, or Alyeska pipeline, (or the pipeline as referred to in Alaska), but those terms technically apply only to the 800 miles (1,287 km) of the pipeline with the diameter of 48 inches (122 cm) that conveys oil from Prudhoe Bay, to Valdez, Alaska . The crude oil pipeline is privately owned by the Alyeska Pipeline Service Company . </P> <P> The pipeline was built between 1974 and 1977 after the 1973 oil crisis caused a sharp rise in oil prices in the United States . This rise made exploration of the Prudhoe Bay oil field economically feasible . Environmental, legal, and political debates followed the discovery of oil at Prudhoe Bay in 1968, and the pipeline was built only after the oil crisis provoked the passage of legislation designed to remove legal challenges to the project . </P>

Where does the alaskan pipeline start and end