| When we mention Oil, most people think | | | | October 2009. |
| "gasoline". While it is true that about half of the | | | | * Finished Motor Fuel (Gasoline): 271,299,000 bbl |
| crude oil we use every day gets refined into | | | | * Distillate Fuel Oil (mostly No. 1, No. 2, and No. 4 |
| gasoline, that is only half of what we use. What | | | | diesel fuel ): 123,509,000 bbl |
| does the other half do? The purpose of this | | | | * Residual Fuel Oil (No. 5 and No. 6 fuel oils, |
| exercise is to figure out where all that oil goes, | | | | includes Bunker C fuel oil): 20,851,000 bbl |
| and what it is used for. All crude oil has to be | | | | * Jet Fuel (Kerosene): 40,036,000 bbl |
| refined before it is used, so we will look at what | | | | * Petroleum Coke (Similar to Coal): 23,823,000 bbl |
| came out of our refineries. We will use October | | | | * Still Gas (Gaseous byproducts of refining): |
| of 2009 as an example. | | | | 19,096,000 bbl |
| US refineries supplied 543,158,000 barrels of | | | | * Propane/Propylene: 16,392,000 bbl |
| products in October 2009. That is about | | | | * Liquefied Petroleum Gases (LPG): 15,074,000 bbl |
| 17,521,000 Barrels per day. We're gonna see what | | | | * Asphalt: 9,043,000 bbl |
| those products were, but first, a short word | | | | * Lubricants: 5,536,000 bbl |
| from the bean counter (me). Tracking every | | | | * Aviation (non jet) Gasoline: 494,000 bbl |
| single barrel of oil through the complex network | | | | * Kerosene: 587,000 bbl |
| of imports, exports, in and outs, processes and | | | | * Many, Many other things: 22,418,000 bbl |
| transportation is a daunting task. Even for one as | | | | * Refinery losses: -30,000,000 bbl (That's a minus, |
| smart as me. Every effort was made to make | | | | stuff that didn't turn out quite right). |
| sure all of the figures here, and throughout this | | | | A couple notes. |
| blog, add up. And, they come awful close. But | | | | Petroleum coke is almost pure carbon. It is used |
| they are not quite perfect. There are losses, | | | | to manufacture things like anodes for batteries, |
| leaks, and slight inconsistencies in all of the | | | | and furnaces, or as a fuel to heat things like |
| numbers, facts and data used. What follows is | | | | forges. It is not an ingredient in soft drinks. ( |
| certainly close enough for all but an IRS Tax | | | | Still gas is NOT used to power a moonshine |
| assessor. Most of my data is from the EIA | | | | factory. It is gas that is emitted from the refining |
| (Energy Information Agency) | | | | process. Since refineries use heat for many of |
| One other note. A refinery experiences something | | | | their operations, in a move of thoughtful |
| called refinery gain. Due to various things such as | | | | conservation, most of this is used to provide heat |
| additives, the output of a refinery is | | | | for the process. OK. Ignoring those minor refinery |
| approximately 5-8% more than the crude oil | | | | losses, lets do the statistical thing, and create |
| inputs. This is why, while refineries used | | | | some quotable figures. |
| 504,607,000 barrels of crude (16,277,000 bbl per | | | | * 49% of our crude oil went into our gas tanks |
| day), they produced 543,158,000 (17,521,000 | | | | as gasoline. |
| Barrels per day) of product in October 2009. So, | | | | * 22% of it went into trucks, farm and |
| lets now take a look at what came out of those | | | | construction equipment, etc - Diesels. |
| US refineries in October of 2009. | | | | * 7% went into our fleet of airplanes. |
| These numbers are the total for the month of | | | | |