STATUS OF REFINERY PRACTICE WITH REGARD TO GASOLINE PRODUCTION ¹ 190012

THE production of gasoline in this country could be increased through the following changes in refinery practice:

1. (1)
   Universal adoption of a high “end-point,” or upper volatility limit for gasoline
2. (2)
   General use of more efficient distillation methods and equipment
3. (3)
   Recovery of gasoline now lost in refinery operation
4. (4)
   Wider use of cracking processes

Other possible methods of increase are not considered of sufficient importance to merit discussion in this connection. Some of the details of the four methods of increase are discussed and it is estimated on the basis of the evidence now at hand that the maximum percentage increases in production under the four heads listed are as follows: (1) 15 to 20 per cent; (2) 10 per cent; (3) 10 per cent, and (4) 100 per cent. It is shown, however, that all four maximum increases are not simultaneously possible and that the increase estimated for the wider use of cracking processes implies a marked and apparently improbable decrease in the use of fuel oil. The paper shows also that the general use of kerosene distillates as fuel in internal-combustion engines would not increase the total supply by more than 55 per cent.

The general conclusion is that the wider use of cracking processes is the one important possibility of increase, and that this is subject to considerable advances in the art of cracking and to a notable decrease in the use of fuel oil.