United States petroleum consumption

Large-scale recovery of light oil was commercialized in England, Germany, and the United States toward the end of the nineteenth century (151). Industrial coal-tar production dates from the earliest operation of coal-gas faciUties. The principal bulk commodities derived from coal tar are wood-preserving oils, road tars, industrial pitches, and coke. Naphthalene is obtained from tar oils by crystallization, tar acids are derived by extraction of tar oils with caustic, and tar bases by extraction with sulfuric acid. Coal tars generally contain less than 1% benzene and toluene, and may contain up to 1% xylene. The total U.S. production of BTX from coke-oven operations is insignificant compared to petroleum product consumptions. 

Lubricants. Petroleum lubricants continue to be the mainstay for automotive, industrial, and process lubricants. Synthetic oils are used extensively in industry and for jet engines they, of course, are made from hydrocarbons. Since the viscosity index (a measure of the viscosity behavior of a lubricant with change in temperature) of lube oil fractions from different cmdes may vary from +140 to as low as —300, additional refining steps are needed. To improve the viscosity index (VI), lube oil fractions are subjected to solvent extraction, solvent dewaxing, solvent deasphalting, and hydrogenation. Furthermore, automotive lube oils typically contain about 12—14% additives. These additives maybe oxidation inhibitors to prevent formation of gum and varnish, corrosion inhibitors, or detergent dispersants, and viscosity index improvers. The United States consumption of lubricants is shown in Table 7. 

Perhaps the most striking feature shown in Table 4 is the large imbalance between regional production and consumption in the Middle East as compared to OECD Europe. In 1992, the Middle East produced five times more cmde petroleum than it consumed, and OECD Europe consumed about three times more cmde petroleum than it produced that is, in 1992, the Middle East exported about 81% of its production of cmde petroleum, whereas OECD Europe imported about 66% of the cmde petroleum that it consumed. In the Asia/AustraUa region, 2419 x 10 m /d (15.2 x 10 bbl/d), or 23.3% of the world s total, was consumed in 1992. In the United States, production of cmde petroleum peaked in 1971 and has declined since then so that only 54.5% of the U.S. cmde petroleum consumed in 1992 was produced domestically. In Latin America, production of cmde petroleum stood at about 150% of consumption, whereas in 1978, production and consumption were about equal. 

On a uniform calorific value basis, coal constitutes 69% of the total estimated recoverable resources of fossil fuel in the United States. Petroleum and natural gas are about 7% and oil in oil shale, which is not as of this writing used as a fuel, is about 23%. The 1989 total recoverable reserves of coal are about 500 times the 1989 aimual production (2), whereas the reserves of oil and gas are smaller, the production and consumption rate of oil and gas in the United States is three times that of coal. 

Table 1 is an estimate of energy usage by United States industry for 1988 (1). The chemical industry used 21% of the energy consumed by the U.S. industrial sector, and the other three related process industries, paper (qv), petroleum (qv), and primary metals, combined for an additional 50% of the industrial consumption. 

Transportation accounts for about one-fourth of the primary energy consumption in the United States. And unlike other sectors of the economy that can easily switch to cleaner natural gas or electricity, automobiles, trucks, nonroad vehicles, and buses are powered by internal-combustion engines burning petroleum products that produce carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, and hydrocarbons. Efforts are under way to accelerate the introduction of electric, fuel-cell, and hybrid (electric and fuel) vehicles to replace sonic of these vehicles in both the retail marketplace and in commercial, government, public transit, and private fleets. These vehicles dramatically reduce harmful pollutants and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by as much as 50 percent or more compared to gasoline-powered vehicles. 

United States and the world (Figure 1), despite perceptions that it has been replaced by other sources. In 1997 production ofboth coal (23.2 quadrillion Btus, or about 4.6 billion barrels of oil) and natural gas (19.5 quadrillion Btus, or about 3.9 billion barrels of oil) on an energy equivalent basis exceeded U.S. domestic oil production (13.6 quadrillion Btus, equivalent to about 2.7 billion barrels, or 3.1 billion barrels of oil if natural gas liquids are included). Coal production in the United States nearly doubled from 1970 to 2000 (from about 600 million tons to about 1 billion tons produced annually). Meanwhile, petroleum consumption at 18.6 million barrels of oil per day is near the all-time high of 18.8 million barrels of oil per day in 1978. Net U.S. petroleum imports (8.9 million barrels of oil per day) in 1997 were worth 67 billion and exceeded U.S. petroleum production (8.3 million... 

FIGURE 6.1 The United States is becoming ever more dependent on foreign sources of oil and minerals. The top graph displays trends in U.S. production and consumption of petroleum feedstocks from 1970 to 2000. It shows the growing contribution of imported oil to U.S. consumption, a contribution that is projected to increase rapidly in the 1990s. The bottom table shows that the United States depended in 1985 on foreign suppliers for 20 minerals and metals, some of which are critical to national security. Courtesy, Chevron Oil Company (top) and the U.S. Bureau of Mines (bottom). 

The transportation segment of the U.S. economy relies heavily on petroleum, accounting for more than two-thirds of all the oil used in the nation [1]. More than 50% of the total petroleum consumption in the United States is imported and this percentage is projected to increase to about 60% by 2025 [2], It is clearly essential that technology options, complemented by policy approaches, to the petroleum-based transportation system be developed and successfully commercialized to transform the transportation infrastructure in the United States. 

In 1973, global consumption of nickel was 660,000 tons and that of the United States 235,000 tons (Sevin 1980). End uses of nickel in the United States in 1973 were transportation (21%), chemicals (15%), electrical goods (13%), fabricated metal products (10%), petroleum (9%), construction (9%), machinery (7%), and household appliances (7% IARC 1976). A similar pattern was evident for 1985 (Table 6.3). In 1988, 40% of all nickel intermediate products consumed was in the production of steel 21% was in alloys, 17% in electroplating, and 12% in super alloys (USPHS 1993). The pattern for 1985 was similar (Table 6.3). In Canada, nickel is the fourth most important mineral commodity behind copper, zinc, and gold. In 1990, Canada produced 197,000 tons of nickel worth 2.02 billion dollars and was the second largest global producer of that metal (Chau and Kulikovsky-Cordeiro 1995). Most of the nickel used in the United States is imported from Canada and secondarily from Australia and New Caledonia (USPHS 1977). 

United States. Yet, even at such low consumption, domestic resources were inadequate Germany imported 85 percent of her petroleum. By 1939, fifteen synthetic petroleum plants were in operation. In 1944, twenty-two coal hydrogenation and Fischer-Tropsch plants converted coal into gasoline and other petroleum products. 

Since 1958 the United States has been a net importer of petroleum. Though domestic consumption continued to increase in the 1960s, only in 1964-1965 did it begin to increase more rapidly, going from approximately four billion barrels per year to almost five and one-half billion in 1970. The United States s petroleum production increased in this period but more slowly than demand. 

Production and consumption of commercially available fossil fuel, nuclear power, and hydroelectric power in the United States for the year 1992 is shown in Table 2 (12). Coal production is most significant followed by natural gas and petroleum. Electricity generation and utilization patterns are shown in Table 4. Coal is overwhelmingly the most significant energy source used to generate electricity. 

The demand for liquefied petroleum gas (LPG consisting of propanes and butanes) is projected to increase rapidly in future years.(1) World consumption is dominated by the United States and Japan. Processing of natural gas accounts for the bulk of domestic LPG however, natural gas production has leveled off forcing the LPG industry to examine other feedstock sources. Japan must look to other countries for future LPG supplies due to environmental and space limitations. An allied problem, especially in the United States, is the continuing need for isobutane to produce valuable alkylates for the gasoline pool. 

Figure 1. Sources of energy consumed worldwide and in the United States in 2001. In that year, the United States consumed a total of 1.0 x 1019 J of energy, whereas worldwide consumption was 4.2 x 1019 J. (Data was obtained from British Petroleum and the World Energy Council.)...

On January 9, 1979, Secretary Schlesinger in a talk to the National Association of Petroleum Investment Analysts Group of New York in New York City, again called on industry to switch back to natural gas from oil. In a major shift in the Carter Administration policy, Secretary Schlesinger said that the United States would emphasize increased industrial consumption of natural gas instead of coal to reduce oil imports. 

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