API
Holds First Postwar Meeting A STAFF REPORT
Possible competition between petroleum and atomic e n e r g y , t e n d e n cies in government
toward collectivism, high capacity
operations
on fluid cracking units, and world petroleum supplies, w e r e among the many topics gone into b y leaders in the petroleum
industry in
6-day session recently in Chicago T H E first postwar meeting of the American Petroleum Institute, its 25th annual meeting, was· held at the Stevens Hotel in Chicago, Nov. 9 to 15. Al though the removal of travel restrictions on Oct. 1, soon after the meeting had been tentatively announced, brought 3,800 requests for rooms, stringency of hotel ac commodations imposed the limitation to speakers and those attending committee meetings. But with over 90 committee meetings, 5 group sessions, and 3 general sessions scheduled, and with those who were able to find accommodations in the city for themselves, final registration wras 2,667. Committee meetings started on Friday, Nov. 9, and continued through the following Thursday. General and group sessions were held on the last 2 days of the meeting. In opening the meeting, William R. Boyd, Jr., president of the American Petroleum Institute, expressed confidence that the petroleum industry does not fear the development of atomic power as a rival, while a different view was taken by Clark Goodman, of Massachusetts Insti tute of Technology, in his talk, "Petroleum
vs. Plutonium", at the closing session. Citing the technologically trained men, skilled labor, and materials diverted to the Manhattan project, the amount of T N T — from petroleum—that xhe atomic bombs replaced, and the fact that petroleum is no longer the most strategic military ma terial, Dr. Goodman pointed out that the competition between petroleum and atomic power has already begun. The peacetime utilization of atomic energy, however, will come gradually. The heat of fission may be harnessed to generate electricity, but the decrease in size of power units to portable size will probably take a long time. Coal, therefore, will be the first to feel the direct competition of atomic power, but as i t is developed the transformation of the petroleum inuustry from a source of fuel to a producer of organic chemicals, now under way, may be completed. By the time sources of coal and petroleum are exhausted, stated Dr. Goodman, there should be plenty of atomic energy available. In his welcoming address at the first general session Wednesday afternoon, President Boyd discussed the changes in
the oil industry since the founding of the institute after World War I and reviewed contributions of the institute to the de velopment of the industry over the past 25 years. Growing out of the National Petroleum War Service Committee (coun terpart of the Petroleum War Council of World War II) whose members became its first board of directors, the institute now has thousands of oil men on hundreds of committees which have solved and are solving problems in every phase of the in dustry; standard specifications for oil field and refinery equipment, drilling and production practices, transportation, waste disposal, accounting practices, and many others. O i l Industry Lauded
Speaking on the same program, Ralph K. Da vies, Deputy Petroleum Administra tor for War, reviewed the accomplish ments of the oil industry during the war and lauded the spirit with which it co operated with the Government—without the necessity for compulsion. Mr. Oavies urged upon the leadership of the oil indus try continuance of advisory services t o government, and, pointing out that t h e impending dissolution of the petroleum administration will probably bring a re turn of the prewar condition of 23 or more independent government agencies con cerned with oil, Mr. Davies recommended that the question of governmental or ganization be one of the first subjects t o be considered. This, Mr. Davies con-
K. M . Watson, University of Wisconsin; J. E. Westenberg, Universal O i l Products Co.; J. S. Wood, Pan American Petroleum and Transport Co.; L. R. Cowles / Standard O i l οί Indiana
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Ralph K. DavieSj D e p u t y Petroleum Administrator for W a r ; Paul H . Giddens, Titusville, Pa.; Bruce K. Brown, Standard O i l of Indiana; Clark G o o d m a n , fàlT; V i c e A d m i r a l Ben M o r e e l l , USN
W m . R. B o y d , Jr., president of A P I ; Lt. G e n . Raymond S- M c L a i n , U S A ; H a r o l d L. Ickes, Secretary of Interior; Lt. G e n . J a m e s H . Doolittle
G e o r g e D . Creelman, Institute of Gas Technology, Chicago; Charles W . Rippie, M e r c k & C o . , Rahway, N . J . / Harold Smith, Bureau of M i n e s , Bartlesviile, O k l a . , S. S. Kurtz, Sun O i l C o . , and chairman o f the Petroleum Division, A C S Capt. B. W . Gillespie and Comm. J . G . King of N a v y Petroleum Plant O f f i c e ;
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R. M . Deanesly and Gustav Esloff, Universal O i l Product»
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Ben Nichols, Crown Central Petroleum Co./ O . C. Bridgeman, Bureau of Standards; W m . B. Plum mer, Standard of Ind.; W . J. Podbielniak
eluded, constitutes the industry's best chance for continued freedom. C. R. Smith, chairman of American Airlines, Inc., in his talk on the relation ship between rail a n d a i r transport, e n livened the session with the charge t h a t t h e railroad industry is attempting t o hamstring transportation progress with restrictive legislation affecting the avia tion industry, which brought a wired d e nial from a railroad executive t h a t was read at a general session t h e following day. Speaking on " T h e Frame of America's F u t u r e " , Virgil Jordan, president of N a tional Industrial Conference Board, traced t h e disintegration in the chemical age of t h e forces developed b y the industrial re\'olution with a resulting tendency toward collectivism and state control. Now, in the atomic age, w e face unlimited government armed with unlimited power —of production, destruction, and compul sion—which is what government control of atomic energy m e a n s . "We can n o longer argue or b a r g a i n with atomic energy", concluded M r . J o r d a n . " I t is a fact which we m u s t accept and use for t h e welfare and freedom of· mankind. T h e most difficult a n d dangerous problem t h a t faces us today is t h e control of t h e political power which threatens to destroy t h e freedom which t h e atomic power offers us." T h e evening meeting on Wednesday was devoted to a review of the w a r t i m e contributions of petroleum industry. Sec r e t a r y of Interior H a r o l d L. Ickes pre sented his farewell address as Petroleum Administrator for W a r ; Lt. Gen. James H . Doolittle spoke for the Army Air Force, and L t . Gen. R a y m o n d S. McLain spoke for the Army ground forces i n com plimenting the oil i n d u s t r y for the part it played in winning t h e war. Pointing o u t t h a t this country supplied 8 6 % of all t h e aviation gasoline consumed by the United Nations, Gen. Doolittle reviewed t h e i m provement of gasoline quality during t h e w a r and s t a t e d that while we had only 9 1 octane fuel for general u s e a t t h e s t a r t of t h e war, we ended the war with grade 100/130 a n d were using 100/150 for spe cial purposes. "Actually, when hostilities 2204
ceased, the AAF was about to employ a new improved fuel, grade 115/145, which has a substantially higher knock rating under both lean and rich conditions. I t was intended for use in certain front line combat-type aircraft, t h e performance of which would have been considerably increased with its use." Speaking a t t h e last general session on Thursday afternoon, Vice Admiral Ben Moreell also voiced t h e Navy's apprecia tion for wartime assistance rendered by the oil industry. On the same program, Capt. B. W. Gillespie, USN, showed a film depicting t h e establishment of fuel a n d air bases in Alaska b y t h e Seabees, P a u l H. Giddens, curator of the Drake Well Memorial P a r k and Museum, Titusville, Pa., deplored t h e neglect b y historians of the influence of the oil industry on our civilization, and Bruce K. Brown, vice president of Standard Oil C o . of Indiana, commented on t h e decline in fundamental research during the war and discussed impending legislation toward establishing government subsidy of research. Technical Sessions
Two sessions were held b y the Division of Production, t h e first of which was a symposium on well spacing and produc tion allocation a n d the second on the tech nology of water injection. Speaking on optimum well spacing, W. H . Barlow and W. B . Berwald, of the Ohio Oil Co., said that 60 acres per well was best for certain types of oil reserves and t h a t even greater well spacing might be best under certain conditions. W a r t i m e regulation was one well for each 40 acres. I n con trast, S. E . Buckley and R . C. Craze, of Humble Oil. and Refining Co., Houston, Tex., reporting an analysis of t h e ex pected ultimate recovery from 97 oil fields, said t h a t well spacing seems t o have little to do with optimum recovery, which is "dependent upon t h e viscosity of the oil, reservoir-pressure declines, and their formation permeabilities". Indirectly supporting this view was the report of W. V. Vietti a n d O. F . Thornton, of the Texas Co., J. J. Mullane of the Carter CHEMICAL
Oil Co., a n d A. F . van Everdingen, of the Shell Oil Co., based on a survey of closely similar fields in Texas, t h a t no more oil was recovered from closely drilled fields than others where wells were further apart. T h e y recommended t h a t well locations be based on engineering principles based upon t h e behavior of oils in the reservoir. T h e technology of water injection in the Allegheny field, New York, was discusesd b y George W. Holbrook, of the Bradley Producing Co., Wellsville, Ν. Υ., who re ported t h a t the productivity of this field was raised to over 4,000,000 barrels in 1942 b y t h e use of water injection after it had dropped to less than 600,000 bar rels in 1912. I t s peak was nearly 6,500,0O0 barrels in 1882. Injection of water in Michigan, on the other hand, has been used solely for the purpose of disposing of waste salt water, according to W. E. Schoeneck, of the Ohio Oil Co., Grand R a p i d s , Mich. Approximately 100,000 barrels of brine is returned underground daily in Michigan fields, which is equal to a b o u t 1.5 times the amount of oil pro duced. T w o serious handicaps to successful operation of water injection are the be havior of water-input wells a n d chemical reactions between injected water and the salt water in the strata. These were dis cussed by P a r k A. Dickey, of Quaker State Oil Corp., and K u r t H . Andreson, of South Perm Oil Co., both of Bradford, P a . , a n d A . J. W. Headlee, of the West Virginia Geological Survey, Morgantown, \V. Va. I n considering the problem of solids encountered during recovery opera tions, M r . Headlee reviewed t h e formation of precipitates by both physical and chem ical action. Algae and bacteria growing i n t h e injection water m a y also cause trouble. T h e Division of Refining also held 2 sessions, o n e on research and technology a n d t h e other on catalytic cracking. At t h e latter, T . P . Simpson and S. C. East wood, of Socony-Vacuum. Oil Co., with H c G. Shimp, of H o u d r y Process Corp., described a n adaptation of t h e thermofor catalytic cracking process called "liquid-charge technique". T h e reactor A N D
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used is the concurrent solid-bed downflow type with provision for introducing t h e feed a t the top and removing the cracked products from the bottom. T h e charge ma3r comprise total liquid or mixed liquidvapor feed. High yields of high-quality motor gasoline and distillate fuel oils are said to be produced. At the same session, E. V. Murphree and associates, of t h e Standard Oil D e velopment Co., discussed high capacity operations on fluid cracking units, a n d Arthur E. Pew, J. Pennet Hill, and J o h n R. Bates, of the Sun Oil Co., described peacetime fuel oils from war equipment. It was concluded t h a t furnace oil in t h e postwar period will be composed almost completely of catalytic distillate. T h e resulting product ( N o . 2 fuel oil) will have a lower specific gravity (28-30, A P I ) and higher 1 0 % distillation point (460° F.) than prewar products, in t h e opinion of the authors. T w o papers were presented before the Division of M a r k e t i n g at i t s only session, "World Supplies of Gasoline, Kerosene, and Burning Oil", b y Stewart P. Coleman, Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey, and "Fuel-Oil Availability", by W. A. M a t h e son, president of Oil-Heat I n s t i t u t e of America, Inc., and others.
Sgt. R. E. Gerstung, a former filling station attendant who was decorated for bravery in the war, is congratulated by Lt. Gen. McLain, Lt. Gen. Doolittie, Wm. S. Boyd, Jr.
Directors Meet Meeting in several sessions during t h e convention, the board of directors of t h e institute approved postwar reconversion plans for the organization a n d announced among other things t h a t : headquarters of the institute will remain in New York City with provision made for an adequate Washington, D. C , office; ail transportation activities of t h e institute are to be consolidated in a new T r a n s p o r t a t i o n Division to be located in t h e Washington omce; a new office, vice president for transportation, has been created; a n d the president is authorized to create a Foreign D e p a r t m e n t whenever suitable conditions prevail. I n a resolution adopted by the board of directors, the Secretary of Interior was requested to " t a k e such steps as m a y be necessary" to provide for the expansion of t h e Petroleum a n d N a t u r a l Gas Division of the B u r e a u of Mines "whereby it may conduct a n d correlate continued basic research in the conservation and b e t t e r utilization of American petroleum reserves". T h e resolution praised the 30 years' work of the division as an especially well-qualified and well-organized research group and voiced its value to the industry. Also announced were t h e re-election of all officers and t h e a p p o i n t m e n t of a new executive committee of 25 members. T h e 26th a n n u a l meeting will be held in Chicago, Nov. 11 t o 14, 1946, b u t the possibility of holding a midyear meeting in Texas will be explored with hotel accommodations a n d transportation governing t h e decision. V O L U M E
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Arnold Selchetz of Stauffer Chemical Co./ J. K. Roberts, Standard O i l Co. of Indiana/ F. D. Rossini, of National Bureau of Standards, Washington, D. C.
J. B. H i l l , J. R. Bates, and W. E. Soden, of Sun O i l . Below. V . I. Komarewsky, Illinois Institute of Technology,· V . A . Kalichevsky, Magnolia; V . N . Ipatieff, Universal O i l
DECEMBER
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