Method and systems for transporting bitumen in solidified form

A solid pellet comprising a shell enclosing a core,

• the core including crude oil refinery feedstock which is suitable for use as a feedstock to an oil refinery to separate into constituents that can be used as fuels, lubricants and feedstocks in petrochemical processes,
• wherein the shell constitutes a leak proof barrier configured to prevent one or more of the constituents of the crude oil from which a fuel can be derived by a refining process at the oil refinery from oozing out of the pellet, and wherein the pellet when subjected to a crush-resistance test, manifests a probability of failure per pellet that does not exceed 0.25 when the height of the load of pellets is of 1 meter.