The paper discusses technical and economic aspects of technology used for transporting commercial heavy oil via trunk pipelines following its treatment with an ultrahigh frequency electromagnetic field (2450 MHz) as an alternative to preheating prior to pumping oils. According to a comparison of the life cycle costs (LCC) for these technologies, microwave treatment is preferable to "hot" pumping for ensuring the required oil transportation throughput. During the transportation of oil following microwave treatment, the decrease in operating costs associated with pumping and treatment/heating is explained in terms of a decrease in its viscosity due to thermolysis of heteroatomic high-molecular components and concomitant volumetric heating to a temperature close to the initial temperature of oil during "hot" pumping.