How is Gas Made
How Gas is Made
Ever wonder how gas is made? What is the process that is used to turn oil into gas that we use? Here is a brief run down on how crude oil is made into gas at the refinery. Watch the Video below of a refinery in Pennsylvania that gives you a walk through tour and kind of explains some of the process.
Oil to Gas
With all the news about the rising costs of oil and gas, I got to thinking that I had no idea how Oil became Gas. So off I went to do a little research to find the answer. Included here Is a simple version of what I learned.
We all know the Oil comes out of the ground at the oil rigs and finds it's way to a refinery. Depending on the Carbon make-up of a particular Oil, it is made into gasoline, diesel, kerosene, naphtha and etc. The Refinery will separate these different Carbons so they can be processed into it's respective product. The different Hydrocarbons have different boiling points. The CRUDE OIL is heated and through a process called Fraction Distillation the different carbons separate. With the Gasoline the vapors condensate and are collected.
Another technique called Chemical processing is used to convert one carbon into another, such as Gas. The gas is treated to remove impurities and different
Carbons can be mixed to give different Octane's.
Other components are mixed with the gas to give it's final product.
The fractional distillation process produces about 250 mL of straight gasoline for each liter of crude oil. The amount of gasoline may be doubled by converting higher or lower boiling point fractions into hydrocarbons into the gasoline range.
The Gas is stored at the refinery until it is transported to the Gas Station.
Making Gas the Old Fashion Way
I found this story about farmers being able to get barrels of Oil for almost nothing and refining it on their own to get gas by evaporation and collecting the condensed liquid.
A quote from "How we made Gasoline" by Norris Chambers
My dad and I built a small dirt tank about a half mile from the house, and before making the dam we ran a 1" pipe through it. On the low side of the dam, we dug a hole large enough for a five gallon can. This is where the fuel would come out. Above the tank we placed a fifty-five gallon barrel on some rocks and fitted the pipe to the vent hole in the top. When it rained and filled our new tank, we were ready to start refining.
Two fifteen gallon barrels were filled with fresh oil and poured in the barrel. Then we started the fire about it. Before long fumes began to come out of the pipe below the dam, and shortly thereafter the gasoline began to run out in a small stream. The first that came out was very high in octane, and would evaporate from your finger as soon as you dipped it in the mixture. But as it continued to distill, it became less volatile. We found from experience that the first ten gallons that we got made good automobile fuel, and that the next six or eight gallons was composed of varying grades of kerosene. But all of it mixed together made excellent tractor fuel. After the first batch, we used the residue to fuel a fire for the next cooking. Because of the heat involved, we never made more than once a day.
Do you think we really have a chance of running out of oil?
Gas Facts
On January 7, 1913, William Meriam Burton received a patent for his cracking process to convert oil to gasoline. Gas was being produced before this time by other methods, I believe this was the first of our modern process.
How much Gas is used in the U.S. each year?
The United States uses about 20 million barrels of oil each day at 42 gallons of Oil per barrel.
From that 42 gallons, we get about 20 gallons of gas.
So, that comes out to about 400 million gallons of Gas that gets used each day. In a years time the U.S. uses about 140 Billion gallons of Gas.
As of 2006, the oil reserves by country were:
Billion barrels
1. Saudi Arabia, 264.3
2. Canada, 178.8
3. Iran, 132.5
4. Iraq, 115.0
5. Kuwait, 101.5
6. United Arab Emirates, 97.8
7. Venezuela, 79.7
8. Russia, 60.0
9. Libya, 39.1
10. Nigeria, 35.9
11. United States, 21.4
12. China, 18.3
13. Qatar, 15.2
14. Mexico, 12.9
15. Algeria, 11.4
16. Brazil, 11.2
17. Kazakhstan, 9.0
18. Norway , 7.7
19. Azerbaijan, 7.0
20. India, 5.8
For more Gas info
- How Gasoline is Made
From energymanagertraining.com, in PDF format - Green Gasoline
Gasoline made from Cellulose - 98 tons of plants per gallon
How much prehistoric buried plant material makes one gallon of gas? - Around the World on a Tank of Gas
Watch the slide show to see gas prices in other countries. - Tips on Pumping gasoline... Facts or Hoax?
Some tips on pumping gas to get the most into your vehicle. - Oil through the ages
A timeline of the history of the oil industry from 347 A.D. to present - Oil Rigs and Platforms
Explanes the different types of oil rigs and platforms-with pictures. - How oil is found
Oil accumulates between layers of of the subsurface or in porous rock among other things. So the job is to find the right convergence that would be necessary to form an oil pool.