Petroleum-producing countries

Anticipating a future shortage of petroleum and acknowledging the uncertainty of continuing to obtain this vital resource from some of the major petroleum producing countries have caused an increased world interest in the extraction of liquid fuels from oil shale. This interest is evidenced by the exploration for new deposits, reevaluation of known deposits, new research studies of oil shale conversion, and the development of new retorts and retorting technology. However, there has been little, if any,... 

By the 1970 s the main emerging goal of hybrid car engineering was to reduce exhaust emissions conservation of fuel was a secondary consideration. This situation changed when, in the wake of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, many petroleum-producing countries supporting the Arab cause cut exports drastically, causing a nationwide gas shorb e and worldwide fears that oil would be used as a political weapon. 

The following (Figure 2.1) is a list of the top fourteen crude petroleum-producing countries and the countries with the top oil consumption (Figure 2.2). 

Figure 2.1 Top fourteen crude petroleum-producing countries source CIA World Factbook 2011...

Shale Oil. In the United States, shale oil, or oil derivable from oil shale, represents the largest potential source of Hquid hydrocarbons that can be readily processed to fuel Hquids similar to those derived from natural petroleum. Some countries produce Hquid fuels from oil shale. There is no such industry in the United States although more than 50 companies were producing oil from coal and shale in the United States in 1860 (152,153), and after the oil embargo of 1973 several companies reactivated shale-oil process development programs (154,155). Petroleum supply and price stabiHty has since severely curtailed shale oil development. In addition, complex environmental issues (156) further prohibit demonstration of commercial designs. 

Alternative Processes for Aluminum Production. In spite of its industrial dominance, the HaH-HAroult process has several inherent disadvantages. The most serious is the large capital investment requited resulting from the multiplicity of units (250 —1000 cells in a typical plant), the cost of the Bayer aluniina-puriftcation plant, and the cost of the carbon—anode plant (or paste plant for Soderberg anodes). Additionally, HaH-HAroult cells requite expensive electrical power rather than thermal energy, most producing countries must import alumina or bauxite, and petroleum coke for anodes is in limited supply. 

Arabia, the largest OPEC oil producer. OPEC produces about 40 percent of the world s crude oil output and It supplies about 45 percent of all traded petroleum. In total, almost 60 percent of the world s crude oil extraction is exported from about forty-five hydrocarbon-producing countries—but the six largest exporters (Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia, Norway, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates) sell just over 50 percent of the traded total. In contrast, more than 130 countries import crude oil and refined oil products besides the United States, the largest buyers are Japan, Germany, France, and Italy. 

As OPEC s share of the world oil supply market continued to fall in the 1990s, they began taking steps to better coordinate production with iron-OPEC producers such as Mexico and other members of the Independent Petroleum Exporting Countries (IPEC). By exchanging information, and undertaking joint studies of issues of common interest, the hope was to stabilize prices and improve the economic outlook for all oil producers. This collaboration between OPEC and major non-OPEC producers helped raise oil prices to over 27 a barrel in 1999 from a low of less than 13 in 1998. 

In some oil producing countries (e.g. U.S.S.R.), toluene is obtained from aromatic fractions of petroleum or by aromatization of heavy petroleum hydrocarbons by cracking processes (in Poland studies on aromatization of petroleum were carried out by K. Smolenski [1] between 1922 and 1939). In war-time the demand for toluene for nitration was so large, that these two sources were inadequate. During World War II new methods of toluene manufacture on an industrial scale were developed starting from benzene and methyl alcohol and from n-heptane. 

Reserves of crude oil, the raw material used to make petroleum products, are not evenly distributed around the world. The production levels of the major oil-producing nations in the world, shown in Figure 2, are based on data collected by the US Department of Energy s (DOEs) Energy Information Administration (El A). Nations in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) produce —43% of the world s total of nearly 68 million bbl per day... 

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