Oil facts - compilation

[Caracalover]

My hope is that this thread can be a resource fro those that wish to know the facts about oil production and how much energy it takes to create this infrastructure the world is so reliant on. Please add some with reference.

From: http://www.eia.gov/state/state-energy-p ... cfm?sid=TX

Texas leads the Nation in fossil fuel reserves and in nonhydroelectric renewable energy potential. Texas crude oil reserves represent almost one-fourth of the U.S. total, and Texas natural gas reserves account for over three-tenths of the U.S. total...
...Due to its large population and an energy-intensive economy, Texas leads the Nation in energy consumption, accounting for more than one-tenth of total U.S. energy use.

•Texas produces and consumes more electricity than any other State, and per capita residential use is significantly higher than the national average

[philaphonic]

Running through some publicly available stats, I thought I was going to come up with some zinger of a condemnation against the refinery industry, in the sense of energy used to refine a gallon of gas. But unless I got some basic math wrong, it looks pretty efficient. Feel free to verify:

In 2005, US refineries processed 6,250,625,000 barrels of crude oil, and 48% of the output was gasoline (1). They used 48,891,000,000 kWh of electricity to do so (2), resulting in 89.4 Wh electricity consumed for every gallon of refined gasoline produced.

48891000000 / 6250625000 = 7.822 kWh/bbl crude oil
42 gallons/bbl -> 7.822/42 = 186 Wh/gal crude oil
186 * 48% = 89.4 Wh/gallon refined gasoline


The chemical energy in one gallon of regular unleaded gasoline is 33.44 kWh (3).

So, in spite of the mind-boggling amount of electricity consumed by refineries, it only takes away about 0.27% of the gasoline's potential.


(1) http://www.npra.org/ourIndustry/refiner ... Statistics
(2) http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/ene_e ... refineries
(3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline_gallon_equivalent

[LeafinThePark]

Running through some publicly available stats, I thought I was going to come up with some zinger of a condemnation against the refinery industry, in the sense of energy used to refine a gallon of gas. But unless I got some basic math wrong, it looks pretty efficient. Feel free to verify:

In 2005, US refineries processed 6,250,625,000 barrels of crude oil, and 48% of the output was gasoline (1). They used 48,891,000,000 kWh of electricity to do so (2), resulting in 89.4 Wh electricity consumed for every gallon of refined gasoline produced.

48891000000 / 6250625000 = 7.822 kWh/bbl crude oil
42 gallons/bbl -> 7.822/42 = 186 Wh/gal crude oil
186 * 48% = 89.4 Wh/gallon refined gasoline


The chemical energy in one gallon of regular unleaded gasoline is 33.44 kWh (3).

Good analysis! I've been looking for this information for awhile and I think you most likely have a good ball park number.

However, there are a couple of complicating factor that we may have to take into account.

1. You assume that since 48% of the output of the refineries is gasoline, that 48% of the energy is used to create gasoline. I do not know if this is proportional. I would guess that some of the products of the refinery would need less processing, and therefore less electricity (motor oil, fuel oil, etc) and some would need more. In the end your assumption may be correct, but I would tend to think it would underestimate the energy needed.

2. Another assumption is related but subtly different. Can we assume since 48% of the output is gasoline it is the direct processing of 48% of the input? Put another way, are ingredients added or removed during the process for the different products so that 1 gallon of gas takes more (or less) than 1 gallon of crude oil to produce? I did find this bit of information, but I think it may make it even more confusing. In it are links to some other pages that seem useful...just don't have the time to chase them all down.
http://fatknowledge.blogspot.com/2007/0 ... arrel.html

So in the end, let's say your number is just a bit low, and we round it up to an even 1kWh/gallon of gasoline. If the national average of fuel economy is currently about 20mpg, this would mean that in addition to the gasoline burned, every car is also using about 5kWh or electricity to go 100 miles. This means for every gas car that is replaced by an EV, the net demand on the grid goes up not by 25kWh/100miles (approx) but only 20kWh/100miles.

[Caracalover]

So in the end, let's say your number is just a bit low, and we round it up to an even 1kWh/gallon of gasoline. If the national average of fuel economy is currently about 20mpg, this would mean that in addition to the gasoline burned, every car is also using about 5kWh or electricity to go 100 miles. This means for every gas car that is replaced by an EV, the net demand on the grid goes up not by 25kWh/100miles (approx) but only 20kWh/100miles.

You would also have to add in the electricity required to pump the fuel and maintain the gas station, wouldn't you? Many stations are open 24/7 and don't spare the electricity.

[thankyouOB]

So in the end, let's say your number is just a bit low, and we round it up to an even 1kWh/gallon of gasoline. If the national average of fuel economy is currently about 20mpg, this would mean that in addition to the gasoline burned, every car is also using about 5kWh or electricity to go 100 miles. This means for every gas car that is replaced by an EV, the net demand on the grid goes up not by 25kWh/100miles (approx) but only 20kWh/100miles.

You would also have to add in the electricity required to pump the fuel and maintain the gas station, wouldn't you? Many stations are open 24/7 and don't spare the electricity.

you forgot the energy needed to explore and extract the crude, transport the crude--commonly thousands of miles--to the refinery, and all the fuel to haul it as gasoline or diesel, in hundreds of thousands (maybe millions) of tankers, to your gas station. Plus the miles you drive to get there.

Let's get real here. The stuff doesnt grow on trees and fall into your gas tank in your car parked in your driveway.

[Caracalover]

This from:
http://theev.biz/ev-info/us-oil-refiner ... o-the-sun/

The U.S. Energy Information Administration figures released on 24th of June, 2011 that U.S. Oil Refineries consumed/purchased 46,227 million Kilowatthours from electric companies in 2010. That figure easily makes the oil refineries in places like California the electric companies largest industrial customer, which also creates an interesting business relationship dynamic as the oil companies also provide fuel to many of the same electric companies.

According to Kenneth Burridge (Editor-in-Chief of EV.com) “The EIA data confirms that quite a bit of the USA’s oil consumption, pollution and carbon emissions could be eliminated just by diverting electricity from the oil refineries directly to the garages of drivers willing to commute to work using any type of electric vehicle”. He goes on the say “the electric bill of a refinery is only a fraction of the fuel they consume and all costs are eventually passed along to the consumer with every gallon of fuel they purchase. Oil refineries are basically middlemen that EV owners don’t need.”. In addition the oil refinery also uses a large amount of: natural gas, coal, petroleum coke, and millions of pounds of water/steam to produce gasoline and diesel fuel all of which would be not necessary if ICE’s could use electricity directly like EVs.

[Caracalover]

you forgot the energy needed to explore and extract the crude, transport the crude--commonly thousands of miles--to the refinery, and all the fuel to haul it as gasoline or diesel, in hundreds of thousands (maybe millions) of tankers, to your gas station. Plus the miles you drive to get there.

I didn't forget. I was just thinking apple to apple. There is really no argument as to which is a more efficient use of energy. I did find through my first link that much of the oil is transported through pipelines, which I have always known, but it amazed me when I read the numbers and distances the oil is going. It isn't all downhill, so there is a pump running somewhere using yet more electricity, so your point is valid. We need data on that energy use, as well as a typical gas station electric bill.

Environmentally the oil pipelines do leak as well, but that is another issue. Gas tanks at every station need to be pulled up out of the ground and inspected, and often are found to have leaked into the ground, entailing yet more cleanup. The list goes on and on, but we need to compile it with hard facts and numbers. I have to admit I don't see this system as philaphonic says: "it looks pretty efficient" . I see it as a whole lot of work went into making it, and maintatining it, and it is not at all an efficient way to do things, it just is already in place. What we will do here is create an easy to verify list of facts that show just how inefficient it is, so that philaphonic can see what he thought he would find to be true is in fact true.

[philaphonic]

you forgot the energy needed to explore and extract the crude, transport the crude--commonly thousands of miles--to the refinery, and all the fuel to haul it as gasoline or diesel, in hundreds of thousands (maybe millions) of tankers, to your gas station. Plus the miles you drive to get there.

Let's get real here. The stuff doesnt grow on trees and fall into your gas tank in your car parked in your driveway.

I think the OP was interested in somehow quantifying the (in)efficiencies involved, and I made a quick attempt to provide just one data point in that giant puzzle, deliberately trying to limit my analysis only to the electricity comsumed by refineries. I still think that one step in the process is surprisingly efficient. If electricity is just a small part of a refineriy's energy consumption, I hope someone can find some hard data on the rest of it.

So now I'd like to add a couple more data points, this time regarding the energy it takes to drill for petroleum. A large modern deep-water drill ship can have six 9,000 HP diesel generators onboard, each consuming 250 gallons of fuel every hour, and producing 40 megawatts of power (enough, they claim, to light 40,000 homes). (1)

As it can easily take two or more months to drill a deep-water oil well, a worst-case calculation (all 6 engines running 24/7 for 60 days) comes up with 2,160,000 gallons of diesel consumed (just for the actual drilling phase) with an energy content equivalent to 87,799,000 kWh.

Globally, 14,000 deep-water wells have been drilled, and about 6% of world oil production comes from deep-water wells. (2)


(1) http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/bus ... 50658.html
(2) http://www.spe.org/notes/2010/07/faqs-o ... ulf-spill/

[thankyouOB]

what about those supertankers pulling into dock all around the US with oil from alaska, mideast, venezuala. they run on fuel.
so do the tanker trucks going from refinery to the gas station.

[Yodrak]

For sure there are complicating factors, lots of them! For the level of analysis that can be discussed in forums like this one, I think that philaphonic has come up with a good number to work with. To get more specifice one would have to go into a lot more detail that would be refinery specific and crude specific, and such numbers would be useless. And some of the uses of electricity in a refinery - could be a lot or could be a little - go into operations that are 'overhead' and cannot be assigned to any one product. An overall average such as the one that philaphonic has developed is a good number to work with.

However, there are a couple of complicating factor that we may have to take into account.

1. You assume that since 48% of the output of the refineries is gasoline, that 48% of the energy is used to create gasoline. I do not know if this is proportional. I would guess that some of the products of the refinery would need less processing, and therefore less electricity (motor oil, fuel oil, etc) and some would need more. In the end your assumption may be correct, but I would tend to think it would underestimate the energy needed.

Certainly 1 gallon of gasoline takes more than 1 gallon of crude to produce - only 48% of what goes in as crude comes out as gasoline! So at the least it takes 2.08 gallons of crude (on average) to produce 1 gallon of gasoline.

2. Another assumption is related but subtly different. Can we assume since 48% of the output is gasoline it is the direct processing of 48% of the input? Put another way, are ingredients added or removed during the process for the different products so that 1 gallon of gas takes more (or less) than 1 gallon of crude oil to produce?