Petroleum pricing

Alcohol Production. Studies to assess the costs of alcohol fuels and to compare the costs to those of conventional fuels contain significant uncertainties. In general, the low cost estimates iadicate that methanol produced on a large scale from low cost natural gas could compete with gasoline when oil prices are around 140/L ( 27/bbl). This comparison does not give methanol any credits for environmental or energy diversification benefits. Ethanol does not become competitive until petroleum prices are much higher. 

Petroleum refining, also called petroleum processing, is the recovery and/or generation of usable or salable fractions and products from cmde oil, either by distillation or by chemical reaction of the cmde oil constituents under the effects of heat and pressure. Synthetic cmde oil, produced from tar sand (oil sand) bitumen, and heavier oils are also used as feedstocks in some refineries. Heavy oil conversion (1), as practiced in many refineries, does not fall into the category of synthetic fuels (syncmde) production. In terms of Hquid fuels from coal and other carbonaceous feedstocks, such as oil shale (qv), the concept of a synthetic fuels industry has diminished over the past several years as being uneconomical in light of current petroleum prices. 

Synthesis Ga.s, Since petroleum prices rose abmpdy in 1974, the production of ethanol from synthesis gas, a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen, has received considerable attention. The use of synthesis gas as a base raw material has the same drawback as fermentation technology low yields limited by stoichiometry. 

During the 1960s and early 1970s the choice was not so much petroleum versus coal but which petroleum route to use. However, there has now arisen a growing awareness of the fact that petroleum resources are not unlimited. This led to substantial increases in petroleum prices. 

The realisation that yeasts would produce dtric acid from n-paraffins was veiy attractive in the late 1960 s. Petroleum byproducts were plentiful and very cheap and there was detailed knowledge available on these processes because the use of hydrocarbon-utilising yeasts for single cell protein was well developed. The strategy was to use n-alkane to produce high yields erf dtric add-producing Candida spp. and to harvest two useful end products rather than just one. The process has not been commerdally successful however. Candida spp. produce mixtures of dtric add and isodtric add and the latter is not a useful product. In addition, since 1973 when petroleum prices rose sharply and have in fact continued to rise, the n-paraffins are no longer a cheap substrate. 

Vegetable oils have the potential to substitute a fraction of petroleum distillates and petroleum-based petrochemicals in the near future. Vegetable oil fuels are not petroleum-competitive fuels because they are more expensive than petroleum fuels. However, with recent increases in petroleum prices and uncertainties concerning petroleum availability, there is renewed interest in using vegetable oils, called biodiesel, in diesel engines. 

The dramatic increase in the petroleum prices has lead to an increase of prices of the raw materials for production of hydrocarbon solvent. Additionally, the environmental problems related to air emission and liquid waste from using these hydrocarbon solvent were the driving forces for new and innovative models for managing such kind of chemicals. 

Several processes for making acrylic acid have been developed.72 Since the 1980s manufacturers have almost exclusively used a two-step, vapor-phase oxidation of propylene that proceeds through acrolein. The acrylic acid then can be esterified with the appropriate alcohols. If current shifts in petroleum prices continue, one of the alternative routes to acrylic acid may become economically preferable. 

In summary, progress on the use of lignins in wood adhesives has been made, but the level of effort directed to lignin utilization in general has been small in comparison with the enormity of the problem, possibly because of the limited advances that have been made in this field in the past. Unless high petroleum prices return, we can expect to see slow continual improvement in opportunities to use lignins as a basis for adhesives. 

Russia is not actively involved in formulating the world energy policy. However, the slightest socio-economic and political instability in Moscow or Tyumen is reflected in the petroleum price in the stock exchanges in New York or in London. 

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