Quote:
Originally Posted by cfg83
Question: From the above picture, is it true that you get about twice as many gallons of gas as diesel for every barrel of oil or .... ????
CarloSW2
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BINGO!
This is what I've been trying to point out. Refinaries can vary those proportions by about 1-2% in either direction but for the most part these are fixed numbers. If you increase the energy input dramatically you can extract gasoline from even the heaviest part of crude but that is a very expensive route that most refiners are not equipped to handle. The type of crude oil such as "light sweet crude" or "heavy sour" will also have an influence on the sulfur content as well as the cost of refining it into either diesel fuel or gasoline. The problem remains that the whole world (ex the US) has been replacing gasoline engines with diesels which has driven up the cost of the fuel to the point that any per mile cost advantage as disappeared. The price of diesel fuel will fall when diesel engined cars go out of favor in the rest of the world. I wouldn't bet on it any time soon.