Petroleum Developments Dominated by Demands of W a r R A L P H K. D A VIES, Deputy Administrator, Petroleum Administration for War, Washington, D. C.
^Ue pefaoJetitH induaauf UeU iee*. άα&ΐφ α tiemetiftmiJi UÂG/I 4OL· ût Ua4> maintained ellential oiuilian. 44#pfdie4, uJule meetina the i*vuUiaUe apfietite ol WGA>. 9H> άσ doina, tUe 14. 4>. pstod&cùon off petnaleutn Ua*, e&ceeded,, fob tlie fc*U time, 5,000,000 ùaAàeU a dot}. . Λ * addition ta itè. talk o£ 4nppltfin& Lcet and Infairtint* tne f^ettotenni indndtbn Uai fdasfed a vital tale in tne 44fntnetic mite* ρΛΟψΛαηι, ad+pfdied toluene fr* axptoàiaeê, and otnel· cnenucaU fa* important application^ PETROLEUM developments during 1944 were overwhelmingly dominated by the demands of war, which were immense in volume at the beginning of the year and constantly increased. While fulfilling the mounting requirements of the military, it has obviously been necessary to maintain the essential petroleum supplies of the civilian populat ion. In a nation whose entire economy is •so closely geared to oil, any serious deficiency in the minimum domestic supply would have done more than cause inconvenience and hardship. It would have disrupted our industry, agriculture, and transportation and led to a condition on t he home front of complete chaos. The resourcefulness, ingenuity, and hard work with which the petroleum industry has met this crisis are so great that it would be unfair to praise one activity more than another. But from a standpoint combining interest, importance, and industrial achievement, probably nothing during 1944 quite equaled the 100-octane program. This called for erection of a considerable number of huge new refineries, all of them extremely complex in structure, for the manufacture of high-grade aviation fuel. The program was started in 1941, under the sponsorship of the Petroleum Administration for War, but it was this last year that saw the building program 9 8 % completed, and production from the plants exceeding 500,000 barrels per day. As a result, our planes have had the fuel for constant bombing missions over Germany in fleets up to 3,000 or more, and our longrange B-29's have been able to carry the war to the homeland of Japan. This construction work cost about $760,· 000,000, of which private companies spent $550,000,000 against $210,000,000 spent by the Government. In the order of their volume of use after aviation gasoline, the petroleum products
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most needed in war in 1944 wore Army all-purpose gasoline for ground combat and transportation in general; heavy fuel oil for the Navy's warships and our great volume of other marine transport; Diesel fuel, which powers the landing craft for invasion; and the lubricants necessary to every type of mechanized operation. In addition, the armed forces have called for a variety of specialty products, such as the fuel for flame-throwers, jellied oil for certain bombs, germicides, and so on—and perhaps most important of all, toluene for the manufacture of explosives. The volume of gasoline which we are supplying to the military is running above 36,000,000 gallons a day. Besides standing an unprecedented strain in its accustomed role, petroleum
also had to take t h e place of rubber, in the form of the .synthetic tire. Large amounts were converted into butadiene and other components of synthetic rubber. T o meet these demands, production of petroleum from the ground was pushed higher and higher. For the first time, the United States' production exceeded 5,000,000 barrels a day. The amount certified for the first month of the new year was 5,040,800. This production record was accomplished despite serious shortages of equipment and manpower that forced a drastic curtailment of drilling in 1942 and 1943. However, operations were stepped up about 2 5 % in 1944 and some 24,000 wells drilled for oil and gas, of which 3,800 were wildcats drilled in search of new fields. T h e Petroleum Administration for War has asked the country's oil producers for 27,000 new oil and gas wells in 1945. Development of the Caribbean oil fields, in Venezuela, Colombia, and Trinidad, was pushed aggressively with results that are becoming increasingly valuable. Experiments also were started with a view to obtaining a future supply other than well petroleum, notably by deriving oil in one form or another from shale, coal, and natural gas. Conversion of the increasing production of crude into the various oil products has kept the country's refineries operating at
Butane isomerization and hydrogen fluoride alkylation plant for the production of aviation gasoline and synthetic rubber components in a modern refinery.
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an ail-uni*» hifçli, and to virtually t h e full practi'·'! limit of their capacity. Throughout tin· year a 48-hour week prevailed in contrast t o a 3(>-hour week at the beginning of the war. As during the previous war years, the problem o f transporting petroleum products was a major one. T h e greatest single event in this connection during 1944 was completion of the Little Big Inch pipeline, which made its first delivery of heating oil to the East Coast on March 4. Stretching 1,475 miles from Beaumont, Texas, to Linden, N . J., the pipeline is 2 0 inches in diameter and is capable of delivering 180,000 barrels of distillate fuel oil or 225,000 barrels of gasoline a day. It roughly parallels the Big Inch line, which was completed about a year earlier and carries crude oil to refineries, rather than finished products to distributors. As to other forms of petroleum transportation—ocean and lake tankers, railroad tank cars, barges, and tank trucks- the recurring shortages and the methods taken to meet them are too numerous to recount. As an emergency measure during the heating season, it was necessary to ship kerosene in 55-gallon drums, loaded in railroad boxcars. Research work during the year was signalized by announcement of a superaviation fuel which will allow our planes to take off from shorter runways, give them greater speed, range, and maneuverability, and enable them to carry greater bombloads. T h e time is not y e t at hand for any statement on its production or use.
Allocation of Petroleum Products Turning to what has been t h e most discussed aSpect of t h e petroleum supply — rationing o n t h e civilian front—the fact is that in spite of all alarms and excursions the situation throughout 1944 was substantially what it w a s throughout 1943. Civilian motor car drivers suffered a very slight reduction in supply, while trucks, busses, taxis, and farm a n d industrial users received a very slight increase. Al! t h e latter are being allotted gasoline o n the basis of their essentiality to the war program. Because the allocation of petroleum products is not fully understood b y the public, a brief description may well be included in a review of 1944, though the system itself had been worked out earlier. Allocation of the nation's oil is made by the Petroleum Requirements Comnut tee of the Petroleum Administration tor \ \ ar, which is presided over by a member of the latter agency. Most of the numbers represent "claimant agencies". The Army and N a v y are officially represented, though actually their requirements reach PAW and the industry in many diverse ways. Obviously essential t o the total war effort are such claimant agencies represented on the committee as t h e War ProVOLUME
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duction Board, the War Food Administration, the Office of Defense Transportation, and the War Shipping Administration. T h e individual citizen's interests in the matter of gasoline are looked after b y the Office of Defense Transportation, and the Office of Civilian Requirements puts forth his needs with regard to fuel oil and kerosene and certain minor gasoline demands. T h e claimant agencies present their needs, and allocations of the available supply are made on a quarterly basis according to the relative essentiality of the claimants concerned. When the decisions have been reached, t h e petroleum products t o be rationed are certified t o the Office of Price Administration, which a t tends t o the vast detail of portioning them out to the civilian population.
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Broader planning, embracing military use and long-term prospects, is in the h a n d s of the P A W Program Division, which works with the Army and N a v y and with representatives of Great Britain. Viewing the 1944 petroleum year in the light of military events, we find two dev e l o p m e n t s which have had a profound effect. One is the invasion of Europe and the other is the increased momentum of our offensive in the Pacific. I t is of course no secret that even prior to D - D a y we were shipping immense quantities of both aviation and ground-force gasoline to Europe, to fuel great air raids on G e r m a n y and to build up stocks for the invasion. Since combat actually started, the d a i l y expenditure of fuel has been very great. While many civilians were specul a t i n g on when their automobile gasoline rations would be increased, we in the Petroleum Administration for War could only strive to see that our forces in Europe got w h a t they required. At year-end this situation continues, and any optimism in w h i c h the individual engages with regard to civilian supply must go hand in h a n d with indications of victory. A n example of how the contingencies of war m a y affect civilian motor fuel is the case of tetraethyllead, an ingredient of premium gasoline and more particularly of aviation fuel. T h e tremendous demand for military gasolines having severely reduced the availability of this chemical for civilian use, it was necessary, in order to keep our armed forces supplied, first to limit and later definitely t o c u t the amount of premium gasoline available to the general public. H e a v i e r requirements for our forces in the Pacific caused a gradual shift of e m phasis t o the supplying of petroleum products to Pacific Coast points of loading.
Catalytic cracking units sych as this Houdry plant at a refinery of the Gulf O i l Corp. contribute to the production of aviation gasoline and synthetic rubber.
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Petrochem furnaces at the Dow Velasco plant are used for heating materials for de hydrogénation. Acetone extraction unit separates butylènes from a mixture of hydrocarbons. The butylènes are later converted to butadiene.
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California is a great oil-producing state but it can by no means meet the demands of a major war, producing as it does only 940,000 barrels a day in a national total exceeding 5,000,000. This record figure, achieved during the last quarter of the year, was accounted for in part by opening of the Elk Hills Naval Reserve. Increased shipment of both crude oil and refined products to the West Coast therefore was a matter of study and planning in 1944. While concentrating on production for war and essential current civilian needs, every thinking official in the oil industry also was looking ahead to times of peace. It was, indeed, with the thought of building for peace that representatives of the United Kingdom and of the United States met last spring and summer in Washington and evolved an Agreement on Petroleum. This agreement, signed last August 8 by the two governments, is designed to foster the orderly development of petroleum resources for international trade to the end that ample supplies may be assured to all peaceable countries on a freely competitive and nondiscriminatory basis. By the terms of the agreement, other interested countries, both oil-producing and nonproducing, will be invited to join later in an international conference t ο work out a multilateral accord. When the Anglo-American Agreement was published last summer, there were oil men who expressed the fear that the in strument contained provisions inimical to the best interests of the domestic industry. PAW, however, persuaded the Petroleum Industry War Council to come forward with specific suggestions for revisions that would assuage the various fears. The original agreement was then recalled from the Senate by the President; and, as this was being written PAW and the State Department were undertaking to revise the wording so that the industry might be reassured as to its meaning, and yet, at the same time, so that the purposes of the document might be preserved. The next step—resubmission of the agreement to the British—was also still to be taken. Among those of us who participated in the negotiations with the British, there was confidence that the two nations would soon be able to consummate an agreement which will foster the cause of harmony in the international petroleum trade for the future, and at the same time encourage the acceptance of sound development practices. If so, the extensive efforts that were made in 1944 were not fruitless. In every aspect of petroleum operations the year 1944 was a strenuous one. With out the patriotic and disinterested associa tion of government and industry, as repre sented by the Petroleum Administration for War on one hand and the Petroleum Industry War Council and the District Industry Committees on the other, the job so vital to American victory could not have been done. AND
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