United States crude

Smith, H. M., Composition of United States Crude Oils, presented before Division of Petro-... 

M. King Hubbert s original prediction for"ultimate United States crude oil production based on assumed initial reserves of 150 and 200 billion barrels" (Source "Nuclear Energy and the Fossil Fuels," Drilling and Production Practice, Publ. no. 95, American Petroleum Institute. June 1956)... 

At this point in time, the total sulfur content of crudes was not taken into consideration, since most of them were produced and refined in the United-States and contained less than 1%, and only the gasoline coming from corrosive crudes needed sweetening (elimination of thiols) for them to meet the specifications then in force. Today all crudes containing more than one per cent sulfur are said to be corrosive . 

Crude preparations of mescaline (61) from peyote were first reported by the Spanish as they learned of its use from the natives of Mexico during the Spanish invasion of that country in the sixteenth century. The colorful history (44) of mescaline has drawn attention to its use as a hallucinogen and even today it is in use among natives of North and South America. Although in connection with dmg abuse complaints, mescaline is considered dangerous, it has been reported (45) that it is not a narcotic nor is it habituating. It was also suggested that its sacramental use in the Native American Church of the United States be permitted since it appears to provoke only visual hallucination while the subject retains clear consciousness and awareness. 

Table 3. Estimates of Proved Reserves and Production of Crude Petroleum in the United States, 10 ...

The value of crude ore produced ia the United States was estimated to average 32.50/t in 1994. Product pricing was reported to vary from 99/t for New York State 200-mesh paint grade to 220/t for ultrafine Montana paint grade. Cosmetic grades were quoted at 263/t. 

Product Recovery. The aHyl chloride product is recovered through the use of several fractional distillation steps. Typically, the reactor effluent is cooled and conducted into an initial fractionator to separate the HCl and propylene from the chloropropenes, dichloropropanes, dichloropropenes, and heavier compounds. The unconverted propylene is recycled after removal of HCl, which can be accompHshed by adsorption in water or fractional distillation (33,37,38) depending on its intended use. The crude aHyl chloride mixture from the initial fractionator is then subjected to a lights and heavies distillation the lighter (than aHyl chloride) compounds such as 2-chloropropene, 1-chloropropene, and 2-chloropropane being the overhead product of the first column. AHyl chloride is then separated in the second purification column as an overhead product. Product purities can exceed 99.0% and commercial-grade aHyl chloride is typicaHy sold in the United States in purities about 99.5%. 

Transportation fuels are the largest consumers of crude oil. Petroleum-based transportation fuels are responsible for 35 percent of greenhouse gas emissions m the United States. Only percent of transportation fuels comes from renewable nonpetro-leum-based sources, primarily from the use of corn-based ethanol blended with gasoline to make gasohol. Increased use of biofuels could lower some of the pollution caused by the use of transportatiou fuels. 

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. 

All of the world s major economies, as well as scores of smaller, low-income nations, rely mainly on hydrocarbons. Crude oil now supplies two-fifths of the world s primary energy (Table 1). There are distinct consumption patterns in the shares of light and hea vy oil products the United States burns more than 40 percent of all its liquid fuels as gasoline, Japan just a fifth and the residual fuel oil accounts for nearly a third of Japanese use, but for less than 3 percent of the U.S. total. Small countries of the Persian Gulf have the highest per capita oil consumption (more than 5 t a year in the United Arab Emirates and in Qatar) the U.S. rate is more than 2.5 t a year European means arc around 1 t China s mean is about 120 kg, and sub-Saharan Africa is well below 100 kg per capita. 

The United States became the world s first producer of deep crude oil from an oil well when in 1859 Colonel Edwin Drake successfully used a pipe drilled into the ground to obtain oil. From then until about 1970, the United States was virtually energy-independent with only some oil and gas imports from Mexico and Canada. Wliile U.S. reserves of coal, natural gas and uranium continue to be large enough to supply internal demand with enough left over to export, the supply of oil took a sharp turn downward. After 1970, even while U.S. demand continued to increase at a steep 6.5 percent per year, the supply of U.S. oil began to decline, necessitating sharp increases in U.S. oil imports. 

Another U.S. policy to attain energy independence was to force all Alaskan North Slope crude oil to he consumed inside the United States and not be allowed to he exported. The problem was that North Slope crude oil is relatively heavy and not suitable for west coast fuel needs. The mismatch of supply and demand caused California refineries to sell heavy distillate fuels abroad and import lighter fuel additives. Furthermore, the forced selling of Alaska crude oil on a very saturated west coast market caused Alaska crude prices to he 1 to 5 per barrel less than the international price, resulting in less oil exploration and development in Alaska. The upshot of all this was lower tax revenue, a loss of jobs in the oil fields, and less oil exploration and development on the North Slope. The United States actually exported heavy bunker fuel oil at a loss, as opposed to the profit that could have been attained by simply exporting crude oil directly. 

Large-scale crude oil exploitation began in the late nineteenth century. Internal combustion engines, which make use of the heat and kinetic energy of controlled explosions in a combustion chamber, were developed at approximately the same time. The pioneers in this field were Nikolaus Otto and Gottleib Daimler. These devices were rapidly adapted to military purposes. Small internal-combustion motors were used to drive dynamos to provide electric power to fortifications in Europe and the United States before the outbreak of World War I. Several armies experimented vith automobile transportation before 1914. The growing demand for fossil fuels in the early decades of the twentieth centuiy was exacerbated by the modernizing armies that slowly introduced mechanization into their orders of battle. The traditional companions of the soldier, the horse and mule, were slowly replaced by the armored car and the truck in the early twentieth century. 

In the United States, 85 percent of wells are drilled by independent oil and gas operators, more than 90 percent of whom employ fewer than twenty people. Therefore, U.S. oil and gas production is dependent on the economic health of independent producers to offset the rising tide of imported crude oil. 

Following the war, there was a steady increase in imports into the United States relative to total supply. During this period, the U.S. share of world oil production declined from 60 percent to 40 percent (1959). Crude oil imports as a percentage of total crude oil going to refineries increased from about 5 percent to 12 percent and the U.S. industry for the first time shifted its position from a net exporter to a net importer of mineral oils. At the same time, U.S. companies were establishing a strong presence abroad. Indeed, much of the oil produced abroad and imported into the United States at that time was owned by American-based companies. 

From a practical standpoint, coal, because of its abundance, has received the most attention as a source for synthetic fuels. As early as 1807, a coal-gas system was used to light the streets of London, and until the 1930s, when less expensive and safer natural gas started to flow through newly constructed pipelines, gas piped to homes in the Eastern United States was derived from coal. Kerosene, originally a byproduct from the coking of coal tor metallurgical applications, can be considered the first synthetic lic -uid fuel made in quantity. But once crude oil became cheap and abundant, there was little serious research on synthetic liquid fuels in the industrial world until the Energy Crisis of 1973. The main exceptions to... 

After 1973 the United States invested heavily in synthetic fuel research and development, hoping synthetics could sciwc as economical substitutes for crude oil. However, coal conversion is not profitable unless the price of crude oil is over 50 per barrel, which is why the processes developed were mothballed when world crude oil prices fell in the 1980s. 

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