The Current Supply of Petroleum Fuels and their Environmental Effects

Posted on by

In finding the required data to complete this assignment, the U.S. Energy Information Administration website was used. From the homepage I used the Sources and Uses dropdown menu to find the “Weekly Petroleum Status Report” (on the right hand side of the dropdown menu) which gave data up to the middle of May. This data was logged for various topics such as weekly U.S. field production, imports, exports, U.S. refiner and blender net production, and the product supplied for a small number of refinery products.

When beginning to look at the numbers, it can be seen that there is a total input of crude oil to U.S. refineries of 15,949 thousand barrels per day (KBPD), the majority of which is actually produced domestically (8,434 KBPD versus 6,469 KBPD imported)1. This is somewhat surprising at first; however if the table is followed backward we can see that there has been a 14% increase in U.S. production and a 5.3% drop in imports since last year1. What can be drawn from this is that America, while still being heavily reliant on oil, is currently becoming slightly less dependent on foreign oil. With this being said, the U.S. is still importing over 4,500 KBPD from Canada, Saudi Arabia, and Mexico alone2. On top of the increase in domestic fuel production there has also been an increase in crude oil exported from the U.S. As of May 16th America exported 71 KBPD which is up from 48 KBPD last year at this time1.

Taking a step backward for a moment, it might beneficial to look in to not just the overall numbers but also the values of specific refinery products such as gasoline, kerosene, and distillate fuel oils. These three products are shown to be the largest components of refinery production currently because they are used as fuels in transportation methods3. When I was investigating these numbers I realized these were the stocks or supplies of each type of fuel in millions of barrels. So as of mid May the U.S. had a stock of 213 million barrels of gasoline, 39 million barrels of kerosene, and 116 million barrels of distillate fuel oil3. Although this seems like a large amount of each, to put things in perspective, America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve can hold up to 727 million barrels of oil so these values are not all that large4. Once again looking at the fluctuations of these stocks it can be seen that gasoline and distillate fuel oil have actually decreased since this time last year while kerosene increased. There are several factors that could lead to these decreases however I believe it could be partly due to Americans driving less as gasoline prices rise5. With fewer miles being driven there may be less need to keep a large amounts of gasoline or distillate fuel oil stored up in case of emergency.

In the refining of crude oil there are several processes done to improve the quality of the oil products so that they meet environmental specifications set by the state and federal government. Refineries must reduce or remove the amount of nitrogen, sulfur, and organometallic compounds in the crude oil to acceptable levels. For instance, nitrogen and sulfur content can be reduced through the use of hydrotreating or hydrodesulfurization which cuts down on NOx and SOx emissions during combustion. Organometallics include elements like nickel, vanadium, and copper must also be taken out due to their highly corrosive and toxic natures.

References:

  1. “Weekly Petroleum Status Report.” U.S. Energy Information Administration . N.p., n.d. Web. 25 May 2014. <http://www.eia.gov/petroleum/supply/weekly/pdf/table1.pdf>.
  2. “Weekly Petroleum Status Report.” U.S. Energy Information Administration. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 May 2014. <http://www.eia.gov/petroleum/supply/weekly/pdf/table8.pdf>.
  3. “Weekly Petroleum Status Report.” U.S. Energy Information Administration . N.p., n.d. Web. 25 May 2014. <http://www.eia.gov/petroleum/supply/weekly/pdf/table4.pdf>.
  4. “Strategic Petroleum Reserve.” ENERGY.GOV. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 May 2014. <http://energy.gov/fe/services/petroleum-reserves/strategic-petroleum-reservev>.
  5. “U.S. Energy Information Administration – EIA – Independent Statistics and Analysis.” Table 5.24 Retail Motor Gasoline and On-Highway Diesel Fuel Prices, 1949-2011 (Dollars per Gallon). N.p., n.d. Web. 25 May 2014. <http://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/annual/showtext.cfm?t=ptb0524>.

Leave a Reply