Oil refinery

“ As a matter of fact, developing this tiny area could yield up to about a million barrels of oil a day. And thanks to technology, we can reach that oil with almost no impact on land or wildlife. To make this country less dependent on foreign — foreign oil, Congress needs to authorize pro-growth, pro-job, pro-environment exploration of ANWR.
As we produce more of our own oil, we need to improve our ability to refine it into gasoline. There has not been a single new refinery built in America since 1976. Here in Virginia, you have only one oil refinery, the Yorktown refinery. ”

“ EXCLUSION.— The term “planned refinery outage” does not include any necessary and unplanned removal of a refinery, or any unit of a refinery, from service as a result of a component failure, safety hazard, emergency, or action reasonably anticipated to be necessary to prevent such events. (3) REFINED PETROLEUM PRODUCT.— The term “refined petroleum product” means any gasoline, diesel fuel, fuel oil, lubricating oil, liquid petroleum gas, or other petroleum distillate that is produced through the refining or processing of crude oil or an oil derived from tar sands, shale, or coal. ”

“ About three-fourths of them, owning wells with 40 per cent. of the total potential capacity of the field, have no pipe lines or refineries, and are entirely dependent for an outlet for their crude upon others who purchase and transport oil. Five companies, owning wells with about 13 per cent. of the potential production, have pipe lines or refinery connections affording a partial outlet for their production. ”

“ With wondrous speed and unfailing certainty it conveys crude-oil from the wells to the refineries in or out of the region, climbing hills, descending ravines, fathoming rivers and traversing plains and forests. Methods of refining have kept pace with progress in transportation. The smoky, dangerous, inconvenient kettle-still of the pioneer on Oil Creek has given place to the mammoth refinery of to-day, with its labor-saving appliances, its hundreds of skilled employés and 332its improved processes. ”

“ He found the region hampered by an expensive, tedious method of moving oil and left it a transportation-system that serves the industry as no other on earth is served. He substituted the steam-pump for the wearied mule, the iron-artery for the roads of bottomless mire and the huge cistern of boiler-plate for the portable tank of wooden staves that leaked at every pore. To Oil City he was a munificent benefactor. He projected the Imperial Refinery, with a capacity of fifteen-thousand barrels a week, by the sale of which he became a stockholder and officer of the Standard Oil-Company. ”

“ In the face of these difficulties the company continued work, and in the spring of 1894 succeeded in making arrangements to ship crude-oil. Storage-tanks were erected at the wells and at the railroad, and a refinery is now in operation at Caspar. The wells vary in depth from nine-hundred to fifteen-hundred feet and three companies are operating. The oil is a valuable lubricant. The transportation of the oil to the railroad is effected by freight-wagons of the ordinary sort. ”

“ Nature certainly spared no effort to bring petroleum into general notice ages before James Young manufactured paraffine-oil in Scotland or Samuel M. Kier fired-up his miniature refinery at Pittsburg. North and south, east and west the presence of the greasy staple was manifested positively and extensively. ”

“ The elder Ross was naively proud to have a “professor” visiting him, and to show him the well that was spudding in, and the one that was bailing, and the score that were drilling. They inspected the new refinery, something really special, that had been exploited in the newspapers as the latest miracle in petroleum engineering; incidentally it was a work of art, buildings of concrete and shining, newly-painted metal, set in a regular pleasure park. Oil wells are black and greasy, incurably so, but a refinery is different ”

“ You were racing with other people, who were always threatening to get your oil. As soon as you had one well, you had to have “offset wells” to protect it from the people on every side who would otherwise get your oil. Also, you might have trouble in marketing your oil, and would begin to think, how nice to have your own refinery, and be entirely independent. But independence had its price, for then you would have to provide enough oil to keep the refinery going, and you would want a chain of filling-stations to get rid of your products. ”

“ In 1870 a few persons, who had previously been partners in a refinery at Cleveland, organized the Standard Oil-Company of Ohio, with a capital of one-million dollars, increased subsequently to three-and-a-half millions. For years the history of refining had been mainly one of disaster and bankruptcy. A Standard Oil-Company had been organized at Pittsburg by other persons and was doing a large trade. The Cleveland Standard Refinery, the Pittsburg Standard Refinery, the Atlantic Refining Company of Philadelphia and Charles Pratt & Co. of New York were extensive concerns. ”

“ Its waters ate away the insufficient foundations of tanks, and rivers of naphtha and gasolene and kerosene overran the river of water for miles. A spark did the rest. Oil refineries took fire, tanks exploded. There were two raging seas—water beneath, fire above. Men, women, children, animals, property were swept along in their intermingled waves. From every overturned tank and blazing refinery fresh streams of oil flowed into the sea of flame, which climbed the hills for the victims the other sea could not reach. Those who escaped drowning breathed in a more dreadful death. ”

“ When the wells cease spouting and it is not deemed advisable to bore deeper, pumping is employed. Generally the oil coming from the wells is conducted into large, carefully tamped excavations in the ground forming ponds or lakes. In these huge reservoirs the sand and heavier parts soon sink, making the bottom impervious. After the settling the petroleum is either pumped into large iron tanks or sent directly to the refinery by pipe-lines. ”

“ Affiant says the said Standard Oil Company owns and operates its refineries at Cleveland, Ohio, and its refinery at Bayonne, New Jersey; that it has no other refineries nor any interest in any other refineries, nor does the Standard Oil Company operate or control in the United States any other refineries of crude petroleum ”

“ It has approximately 735 tank cars, operates about 470 miles of pipe line, including adequate facilities for the transportation of crude oil from the fields to its refinery, and has about 256 wholesale and 263 retail gasoline stations in Oklahoma and other states which are supplied from its refinery. At the refinery it has gastight steel storage tanks with a total capacity of about 645,000 barrels. ”

“ He started a little refinery in Cleveland, hundreds of miles from the oil wells. The sixty and more manufacturers who had been able to plant themselves before 1860, when they had to distil coal into petroleum before they could refine petroleum into kerosene, had been multiplied into hundreds by the arrival of petroleum ready made from below. Some of the richest and most successful business men of the country had preceded him and were flourishing. ”

“ In case of the refineries situated at the seaboard the cost of carrying from the Oil Regions the 1331⁄2 barrels of crude oil required to make 100 barrels of refined was made exactly the same as carrying the 100 barrels of refined made in the West and transported East. This really amounted to charging nothing for getting the crude oil to a refinery wherever it was situated, as the following clause in the agreement shows: "The roads transporting the refined oil shall refund to the refiners as a drawback the charges paid by them upon the crude oil reaching their refineries by rail." ”

“ From the mouth of the shaft, elevated some fifteen feet above the surface of the ground, the oil either flows or is pumped into an immense vat or tank, and from this is led to another and another, until a large well will have a series of tanks connected like the joints of a rattlesnake's tail. Into the last one is put a faucet, and the oil drawn into barrels is either carried to the local refinery, or in its crude condition is boated to the railway, or to Oil City, and thence down the Alleghany. ”

“ Steady flow is estimated at 6000 to 8000 barrels daily. The oil, which is dark with some asphalt, gives about 30 per cent gasoline, 6 of kerosene, 20 lubricating oil, and 12 asphalt. A pipe line and wagon road are being constructed from the three wells drilled near the Colorado River 35 miles to Barranca Bermeja where a refinery has been erected. It is said that this is to supply Colombia with gasoline, kerosene, and lubricants at prices not above those of New York. The use of residual fuel oil on the river steamers will greatly facilitate their operation. ”

“ One well is said to rank in output with some of the Mexican. Much of the oil is now used by some Venezuelan railways, and by industries of the country. Part of the crude oil is carried by three barges and eight converted monitors of 450-500 tons each to a refinery at Curaçao, which has larger storage tanks, pumping station, etc. The refinery has been running 1000 tons of crude oil daily, but can take care of 4000 tons. The swift current of the Maracaibo Channel makes management of the monitors difficult. This Company has other wells at Perija, 50 miles west of the Lake. ”

“ At every stage of its journey from the hole in the ground to the abode of the purchaser of kerosene, oil is handled with a view to the best results. The pipe-line relieves the producer from worry and fatigue and a large outlay, furnishing him prompt service and a cash market at his own door every business-day in the year. It enables the refiner to fill the consumer’s lamp at a trifling margin above the price of crude. For seventy cents a barrel—less than half it cost formerly to haul it a mile—the line collects oil from the wells, pumps it into the trunk-lines and delivers it in New York. ”

“ At one time, the refiner had to consider the saleability of his refined products before he commenced to refine them, but to-day, with the perfect system which prevails for the handling of huge quantities of refined products, and the transporting of them to the most distant markets, the one desire of the refiner is, naturally, to secure from his treatment of the crude oil, as many refined products as possible, always keeping an eye on the production of the largest quantities of the higher priced products than upon those which are of low value. ”

“ Its efforts to drive out the independent refineries by the manipulation of the railroads drove the producers and refiners to combine. The heavy charges for handling oil by the Standard pipe-line and by the railways drove these independents to build a seaboard pipe-line for both refined and crude, and to demonstrate that refined as well as crude could be pumped to the sea in pipes. The buying out of their foreign agents forced them to develop their own market in Europe. ”

“ There are several well-equipped independent refineries in operation at the present time in Pennsylvania [Pg 430] and Ohio oil-fields where the refiner has his own crude oil, his own pipe line, and produces his own natural gas for fuel purposes. It is needless to say that an experienced and skilful refiner operating under such favorable conditions can manufacture at less cost per barrel than any trust with a long list of pensioners and burdened with the control of two political parties and the maintenance of numerous city mansions, stock farms, and theological seminaries. ”

“ It is true hundreds of inferior refineries have been dismantled, not because they were frozen out by a crushing monopoly, but because they lacked requisite facilities. The refineries in vogue when the Standard was organized could not stay in business a week, if resurrected and revived. A team of pack-mules might as well try to compete with the New York Central Railroad as these early refineries to meet the requirements of the petroleum-trade at its present stage of perfection. ”

“ Bulk-boats, leaky barrels and long hauls through fathomless mud are superseded by pipe-lines, which pump oil from the wells to New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cleveland and Chicago. The rickety stills and dangerous devices of former times have yielded to the splendid refineries that utilize every vestige of crude and furnish two-hundred merchantable commodities. For much of this important advance in tools, appliances and machinery the great Oil-Well Supply-Company is directly responsible. From small beginnings it has grown to dazzling proportions. ”

“ As the business grew it organized corporations under the laws of these states, to carry on the industry under corporate agencies. Manufactories were located at the seaboard for the export-trade. It was easier and cheaper to pipe crude to the coast than to refine it at the sources of supply and ship the varied products. Thus the refining of export-oil was done at the seaboard, just as iron is manufactured at Pittsburg instead of at the ore-beds on Lake Superior. The company aimed to open markets for petroleum by reducing the cost of its transportation and manufacture and bettering its quality. ”

“ There is a large number of refineries in the country—a great deal larger than is required for the manufacture of the oil produced in the country, or for the want of the consumers in Europe and America; the capacity of the oil refineries in the country is, I think, 45,000 or 50,000 barrels a day ”