Abstract: With the widespread increase of production in the oilfields in East China, the oil throughput of the pipeline systems in this area have been in reduction year after year, and some of them have gone beyond their optimum margin of economical operation. On the basis of the oil transportation conditions from 1991 to 1994 in Jiangsu Oil Transportation Department, the author analyzes the reasons for strong shortage of maintenance cost, and the factors causing rapid operation cost and great propotion of depreciation cost, showing with a large amount of data the grim situation faced with by the oil pipeline industry. The following suggestions are put forward for tapping the internal potential of the enterprise, transforming operation mechanism, and extricating predicament : ①Enhancing the management of the conventional controllable part in the total cost; ②The cost for oil transportation can only be cut down by concentrating efforts on fueIs and power saving; ③Allowance for depreciation of fixed assets is a new field to open up in our future work.