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By J. B. Umpleby

The subject of reservoir energy and its efficient utilization has been well explored in many papers. The present effort, therefore, is limited to a summary of existing information combined with an emphasis of the probability that the relative importance of controlling factors will change with advancing knowledge. Consequently the necessity for flexibility in laws and regulations, inherent in the problem, is emphasized. Definitions Many terms have been widely used in the literature without having been specifically defined. For example, confusion exists in the use of ((reservoir energy" and "gas energy." The latter is much more limited in meaning than the former. Other terms have been variously used. Consequently, I shall preface my remarks with definitions of a few of the more pertinent terms. Reservoir energy is that force or forces, active or potential, that is native to the reservoir and has the power to move oil through the reservoir rock. The energy may result from expanding gas, from hydrostatic head, from the weight of overburden, or from any other source. Gas energy is the expansive power of gas when pressure is reduced. It is one type of reservoir energy. An oil reservoir is that part of a geologic formation or formations in which oil occurs in commercial quantities wholly surrounded by nonproductive rock. The essence of this definition is effective separation rather than remoteness and under it oil reservoirs may be superimposed in the same oil pool. Conservation of reservoir energy means primarily its maximum use in the production of oil. Unit operation is a plan of development and production, which embraces an entire oil reservoir under a unity of engineering control. It is distinct from unitization, which has to do with arrangements of organization and equities to make unit operation possible in areas of divided ownership.

Jan 1, 1934

By Julian Kennedy Edgar

THINKING that it may prove of interest to the Institute, I have prepared a short account of the blowing in and subsequent working of the "A" furnace of the Edgar Thomson Steel Works. This furnace was built for the purpose of making spiegel, but has been started and is now running on Bessemer iron. The shape and size of the furnace are shown in the accompanying drawing. It will be seen that the section is formed of lines making very small angles with each other. In fact, an arc of a circle can be drawn, from the top to the tuyeres, which will nowhere deviate more than two inches from the lines given. In building, also, great pains were taken to gradually round the angles, so that the most careful observer, standing in the crucible and looking upward, could not tell at what points the slopes changed. It will also be seen that the widest part of the furnace is almost exactly midway between the bottom and the stock line, The flattest slope is maintained for 20 feet above the crucible, and is about 1 s inch to the foot from the perpendicular. The furnace is lined with small brick throughout, and has six tuyeres four inches in diameter, which project seven inches inside of crucible. There are three Siemens-Cowper-Cochrane stoves, each 15 feet in diameter by 50 feet high. Blast is furnished by an upright engine with 32-inch steam cylinder, 84-inch air cylinder, and 48-inch stroke. The steam cylinder has balanced poppet valves, working horizontally. The steam valves are worked by a Porter link-movement in order to obtain a variable cut-off. The exhaust valves are worked by a separate eccentric. It is intended to attach a governor to the cut-off, but at present it is set by hand. The steam cylinder is

Jan 1, 1880

For some time attempts have been made to improve drilling efficiency (and therefore reduce costs) by introducing certain reagents to the flushing medium. Much of this interest is the result of the Russian book, Hardness Reducers in Drilling, by Rehbinder, Schreiner, and Zhigach, published in 1944. Before embarking on full-scale drilling tests, it was decided to investigate the effects on the tensile strength; these results would help in the selection of the proper reagent and its optimum concentration. Selection of Tensile Strength Testing A drilling system basically performs two separate operations: 1) Breakage of rock. 2) Removal of the broken pieces of rock. Both affect drilling and drill performance but are distinct and separate phases of the process. Causing rock to break during drilling is a matter of generating sufficient stress with a drill bit to exceed the strength of the rock. This strength of the rock may be termed its drilling strength; it is not equivalent to any of the well-known strength parameters. Various criteria have been employed to measure the efficiency of a given drilling system or for comparing different systems and one of the most important criteria is "speed of drilling." Speed of drilling is a function of drilling strength of the rock. Many researchers have tried to correlate the speed of drilling with the strength properties of rock and compressive as well as tensile strength values have been found to give reasonable correlation." As the strength of rock drilled increases, speed decreases. As the Brazilian testing requires the least amount of core, this test was selected. Material Tested Broken Hill lode quartzite has been used in these tests. It is composed chiefly of quartz with varying amounts of sericite, pyrrhotite, chalcopyrite, galena, and garnet. The total porosity of this quartzite is about 11%.

Jan 1, 1973

Such are the rigors of climate and topography of western Tasmania, that much of the area has remained uninhabited. The mountains, rising to peaks above 5000 ft high, receive the winds out of the west and precipitate 110 in. of rainfall a year on this coast. The drenched forests have a primordial look with such unfamiliar trees as the tru-sassafras, blackwood, cheesewood, ti tree, and man tree ferns. Prospectors speak of the "horizontals," trees which, in the dense foliage, grow out flat. When the explorer climbs over them he does not come back to the ground but continues forward on dense vegetation with the ground many feet below. Gold was discovered by the intrepid prospectors of the late nineteenth century and stamp mills were erected in the vicinity of Zeehan and Queenstown. At Mount Lyell, mining began for gold in the ironstone capping. The familiar story, of course, is that copper was found beneath the gossan and it was this mineralization that lead to permanent mining operations. Two companies began mining at Mount Lyell and their history from 1893 to 1902 was marked by an unreasonable competitiveness, human perversity and technical difficulties. The North Lyell and Mount Lyell companies were mining copper ores within one mile of each other separated only by a ridge. Each company built its own railroad and harbor. For six years of struggle both companies tried to work out the metallurgical problem which was the key to profit. Although they didn't know it, the two ores were complimentary and could have been smelted together. North Lyell ore was strong in silica and weak in iron, whereas Mount Lyell was fortunate in having a first-class metallurgist in Robert Sticht, from Brooklyn, N. Y., who in 1902 successfully achieved pyritic smelting without the use of carbon fuel.

Jan 10, 1964

By Carl H. Beal, E. D. Nolan

In February, 1918, the conclusion was published by Lewis and Beal "that wells of equal output on the average will produce equal amounts of oil in the future, regardless of the ages of the wells." This conclusion was based upon the study of data collected principally in Oklahoma and was not known at that time to be true for other oil fields. An abundance of statistical proof was later collected by the senior author of the present paper, which showed that the conclusion was undoubtedly well founded and that it applied to other fields as well. Accordingly, it was later restated2 as the "law of equal expectations" as follows: "If two wells under similar conditions produce equal amounts during any given year, the amounts they will produce thereafter, on the average, will be approximately equal, regardless of their relative ages." Although only scanty data from the California oil fields were available at the time this publication was prepared, sufficient information was analyzed upon which to base the insert on Fig. 80, which showed beyond a doubt that the law held at least for a part of the Midway oil field in California. Recently the authors have collected more complete data in California, and it is the purpose of this paper to explain the method used in demonstrating the truth of the law and, in addition, to give several methods by which curves constructed in accordance with this law can be used in a practical way with ease and accuracy. The Family Curve The law of equal expectations means that each individual of a group of wells producing under similar conditions will decline along approximately the same type of curve, the rapidity of decline varying with the output

Jan 1, 1921

By Joseph Pogue

PRORATION in the petroleum industry has come to mean a method for curtailing the production of crude petroleum by artificial effort, and it is in this sense that the term is employed throughout this paper. Although a contrived curb on supply has been invoked at various times in the past in particular fields and to meet specific situations, it is not until the past few years that this procedure has become general and assumed a dominant role in the oil business. In the sense that we now understand it, proration had its inception in the Seminole area of Okla-homa in 1927, from which time and place the practice spread to include practically all the flush oil fields of the country, especially those of California, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. At present there is perhaps no phase of the oil business that commands more attention than proration, nor one that engages more time and effort on the part of executives in the business. The practice of proration, indeed, has not only become an integral part of the policy of most companies and operators, but it has also taken on the aspects of a "movement" involving two schools of thought with considerable feeling, and at times some bitterness, on both sides. In this atmosphere it is difficult to find calm, dispassionate consideration of proration, for most discussions are either vigorous exhortations by its proponents, or else sharp condemnations by its opponents; although it appears that the majority of the industry is clearly "in favor of" proration. It is hoped that this analysis will be taken as an attempt to appraise the movement as an economic force, without bias and without regard to the incidence of the conclusions upon any preconceptions that the industry may entertain.

Jan 1, 1932

INTRODUCTION TO STATISTICAL INFERENCE The intent of the mineral appraiser in collecting samples from a mineral deposit is to arrive at accurate conclusions concerning the size and value of the deposit. In other words, he wants to derive reliable inferences about the total mineral population from the collected sample data, which (he hopes) is representative of the whole. The discussion of sampling theory in Chapter 2 was oriented toward assuring that our sampling techniques and sampling units would indeed be representative of the total mineral population. Chapter 3 described the most common statistical parameters for defining distribution in various populations. Chapter 4 gave some insight into theoretical distributions of random variables and the probabilities associated with them. The intent of this chapter is to derive inferences from the preceding information about the population mean and the population variance. Knowing something about the normal distribution, and assuming our samples represent a roughly normal population, we can make inferences or logical deductions about the estimated interval or the limits of values which can be assigned to a mineral population. ESTIMATION OF POPULATION PARAMETERS In the application of statistics to mineral deposits it is never possible to know the actual values of the parameters or the theoretical distribution of values within the deposit for which our data are samples. Even after the deposit has been mined out it is questionable if the true value of the parameters can be retrieved accurately, due to dilution, mining, and processing losses. Therefore, our problem is to determine what function of our sample values we should use to estimate the unknown parameters of greatest interest to us-namely, the population mean and the population variance of the deposit. Since we cannot know

Jan 1, 1980

By A. J. Weinig

The method described is a modification of Schutzenberger's whereby the solution in titrations and the standards are protected from the atmosphere by a layer of kerosene. Indigo-disulfonate is the indicator and sodium hydrosulfite the standard. The method is rapid and delicate. It has been tried on a variety of mill solutions and mill men have found the method of value. THE important part that dissolved oxygen plays in the cyanide treat-ment of gold and silver ores is commonly recognized by most metallurgists and mill men.. But heretofore there has been no simple method on which the mill man could rely for determining the amount of oxygen in the various mill solutions. A few methods are adaptable to the, laboratory, such as the gasometric1 determination by actually measuring the oxygen. Winkler's2 iodometric method, and Schutzenberger's3 method, which depends on the reducing action of sodium hyposulfite on a blue solution of indigo carmine; but these are not readily adaptable to the needs of the mill man and cannot be applied to cyanide solutions without modification. The gasometric method is the most accurate but it takes too long to complete a determination. White's' method (a colorimetric method that depends on the degree of coloration imparted to a solution of pyrogallic acid in the presence of caustic soda) although much more rapid than any of the methods named, often gives misleading results on account of grading of colors of different solutions, which nearly always contain various kinds of salts. The method herein described was devised for the use of the mill man, the aim being to develop a simple, practical, accurate method. It is a modification of the Schutzenberger method and depends on the reducing

Jan 8, 1924

By G. Bassi

RECENTLY Wallbaum¹ found that copper wires with different degrees of deformation up to 98.7 pct area reduction recrystallize giving a [112] texture, while deformation over 98.7 pct gives either a [l00] texture at low temperatures or a [1ll] texture at high temperatures. Furthermore it was found that the recrystallization temperature as a function of deformation up to 98.7 pct decreases as expected, but increases over that deformation. Wallbaum concluded that the different textures have different recrystallization temperatures. The [112] texture has the lowest and [Ill] the highest. At the same time Bassi² found that for high deformation (over 99 pct area reduction) and for an annealing temperature of 400°C, the [l00] texture first forms and with prolonged annealing time the [12] texture appears through grain growth. This secondary texture does not appear if the wire is annealed at 1000°C before the deformation. From these two papers it might be concluded that the [I12] texture can appear either as a primary or as a secondary texture after annealing. The texture formed in a special case depends on the previous history of the wire. Probably the texture of the wire prior to the last deformation is important. To investigate this, wires were produced by adequate deformation and annealing to give a [l00], a [112], and a [lll] texture. The wires then were given a series of different deformations and were annealed at various temperatures, after which the textures were studied. Experimental Work The copper used was electrolytic tough-pitch (Cu 99.90 pct and 0, 0.04 pct). Three wires with the different initial textures were made in the following way: The [l00] and [112] by drawing a 16 mm rod to 1 mm and annealing it 16 hr at 200°C and 2 hr

Jan 1, 1953

By A. L. Field

WOOLSEY McA. JOHNSON, Hartford, Conn. (written discussion).¬When ;we regard the number of British thermal units running into the billions that-must be applied to metallurgical slags in the United States, we cannot but conclude that the physical chemistry of-slags is a very important subject when measured in dollars and cents. A further contemplation of the subject shows us that it has been hitherto treated in too purely a practical manner. It is needless to comment at length on the cost of these heat units and on the cost of fluxes to produce these metallurgical slags, for, it amounts to tens of millions of dollars annually. Accordingly, this research is of value to the country. But we must,all balance our results against our efforts. Therefore, while the speaker is unwilling to criticise unduly this meritorious research, lie does criticise it in the interest of the profession for the reason that it seems to him too highly theoretical. The article is much too, scientific to produce results at a minimum cost. Let us explain our meaning. It has been said that there are always two sides to a question. It may be further said that there are always three sides to a question, the two extremes and the middle ground. In any industrial research there are the highly theoretical side, the purely practical side, and the theoretico-practical side. To study a slag and be practical in the studying, there is something needed that represents in the laboratory (or in microcosm) what actually happens macrocosmically in the blast furnace. There is such a thing as the art of metallurgical research occupying the middle ground between theory and practice.

Jan 4, 1917

By Strathmore R. B. Cooke, Iwao Iwasaki, Hyung Sup Choi

The effect of temperature as a parameter in ore flotation has not been systematically studied, although for some ores it has been known for many years that selectivity and grade of concentrates can be improved by conditioning or flotation at moderately or substantially elevated temperatures. In 1934 Coghill and Clemmer' stated that "elevated temperature seems to make hard water more tolerable" in soap flotation, and a cursory examination of the literature indicates that some earlier investigators were aware of beneficial results obtained by floating above room or mill-water temperatures. Tartaron,' Mitchell et al.,3 and particularly Hamilton et al." have shown that high pulp temperatures give high recovery and selectivity in soap flotation of fluorite from a variety of gangue minerals. As a result of the work of these and of other investigators, high-temperature flotation has been successfully applied to industrial flotation of fluorite. Falconer" stated: "The use of high temperature conditioning (above 35°C and preferably above 60°C) in connection with the soap flotation of nonsulphide ores, as covered in B. Kalinowski's French Patent No. 847,- 215, Dec. 7, 1938, is claimed to provide more intense activation, better separation of values from gangue, and reduction in quantity of reagents." The various investigations quoted above clearly demonstrate the improvements to be realized by increasing the temperature at which fluorite is floated, and it is surprising that little or no information has been published on systematic investigation of the same method as applied to other ores.

Jan 5, 1960

By Gregory Comstock

THERE is a growing interest in the possibilities presented by the manipulation of metal powders, which justifies an attempt to summarize their character and potential value. A summary of this kind presents an opportunity for making a classification of metal powder products into several general types. Our present knowledge of the finer and more abstract aspects of many of the principles involved in metal powder technique is extremely limited. Any conclusions as to the ultimate value of the process will, therefore, for the present at least, be of doubtful value unless they are substantiated by its products. The number of such products is increas-ing. A study of their diverse and unusual characteristics; an examination of the methods by which they ale made, and a consideration of the reactions that take place during their fabrication, in so far as we can define them, should afford as good an evaluation of this interesting development as it is possible to make at this time. A critical study of this kind results in a formidable list of special attributes, which apparently are characteristic of applied powder metal-lurgy. A comparison of these special effects with the end products and well defined limitations of the melting and casting process indicate that often they may very well be considered as being special advantages. They are subject, of course, to certain not as yet so well defined limita-tions of their own. Based on current products only, a necessarily con-densed summary of the more striking special attributes of the metal powder process follows.

Jan 1, 1938

By John Boardman

THE Anaconda company has never indulged in any employee activities at Butte which might be termed paternalistic, but it has exerted a vast amount of effort in care of its employees during working hours. The reason for this policy is not lack of interest or that the company does not feel the effect of employees' activities while they are "off the job"; it is that the company and the city of Butte have grown up together and, each has been adequate in its own sphere, the company in providing employment at the highest possible wage and the city in providing housing, sanitation, commercial services, medical services, schools, churches, amusements and entertainments. The one exception to this independence between the company and the community is the Butte Water Co., which is a wholly owned sub-sidiary of the Anaconda Copper Mining Co. Mention of this relationship is made here because the water supply of such a city as Butte is one of the principal factors in determining the health of the people. Very early in the development of the Anaconda company an adequate and dependable water supply for the operations became necessary, therefore the company took over this important community function. So well has this activity worked out that during the whole period of time covered, in which the company has expanded to become practically the sole mine operator and the community has grown from a small mining camp to the status of a modern city, there has been no shortage of water or any outbreak of water-borne, epidemic disease.

Jan 1, 1938

By J. J. Bowman, E. H. Dix

A LACK of experimental data illustrating the effect of composition, particularly in respect to impurities, on the mechanical properties and corrosion resistance of aluminum-alloy die castings induced the authors and their associates to undertake a limited study of these relations. A number of commercial alloys and several experimental variations of a commercial alloy were used for the investigation. Mechanical property, growth, steam, paraffin, salt spray and atmospheric exposure tests were employed. This paper deals with the more accelerated tests and the results they have produced. It is concluded that a high-silicon alloy with all impurities except iron strictly limited to small amounts will develop an excellent resistance to corrosion and retain satisfactory mechanical properties and casting characteristics. As a direct result of this investigation an alloy of this character with superior corrosion resistance is now available commercially. In general, copper increases the strength and decreases the elongation and corrosion resistance. Tin reduces the mechanical properties and the resistance to corrosion. Iron reduces the elongation and, if excessively high, may adversely affect the tensile strength. Even excessively high iron contents do not affect the corrosion resistance, which is fortunate for the die caster as it is this element that is the most difficult to control. Nickel and zinc in limited amounts do not seem to affect the properties or corrosion resistance of at least the high-silicon alloy. Growth tests have confirmed the previous common belief that dimensional changes under either dry or wet conditions at 100° C. are too small to be of practical importance.

Jan 1, 1935

By Marcel Daly

IN a preceding paper 1 the writer has pointed out some apparent relationship between the distribution, on the Surface of the globe, of the known hydrocarbon deposits and the disposition of the principal zones of deformation of the earth's body (geosynclines). He wishes to present some further remarks on this subject. Petroleum deposits, or their derivatives or descendants, are found through the whole range of sedimentary strata, from the pre-Cambrian to the Quaternary. For instance, the pre-Beltian (Shuswap) series of the Canadian Cordillera are interbedded with limestones which are sometimes rich in carbonaceous matter (Sicamous limestone) ; and the Beltian system of the same region contains layers of argillites and dolomitic limestones which are equally high in carbon content.2 This carbon may be interpreted as the last remnant of hydrocarbons previously contained in the rocks. On the other hand, the actual formation of hydrocarbons wider conditions that would eventually permit their deposition in modern sediments is conceded by some geologists.3 Between these two extreme limits, bitumens are found indifferently in all sedimentaries. They constitute a continuous series, some kind of a large family, whose individual members may be entitled to a community of origin and probably represent the differentt stages of evolution of the primitive, parent matter. . The kinship between petroleum and such substances as asphalt, ozocerite, manjak, grahamite, albertite, etc., is well known; and E. H. Cunninggam-Craig has recently shown how intimately shale fields and oil fields are connected. For this reason, no distinction is made in the present

Jan 8, 1917

By Leo L. Van Sambeek

An understanding of the creep and yield behavior of salt is required for the rock mechanics design aspects of solution mining. Most previous studies of salt behavior have been performed on small specimens of salt under homogeneous stress conditions; i.e., uniaxial and triaxial tests on specimens <0.002 m3. The corejacking test is a larger scale test (-0.75 m3) with inhomogeneous stress conditions that provides data on the structural response of salt. Interpretation of the responses from eight such corejacking tests provides verification of the requisite constitutive parameters required to predict salt behavior at different levels of stress and temperature. These constitutive parameters are not those studied in the usual laboratory test. Corejacking test results show almost inseparable elastic and plastic closures simultaneous with the corejack pressurization. Very rapid closure (on a relative basis) continues for a period of time after the pressurization. This rapid closure is shown to be both continuing yield deformation and creep deformation. After the period of rapid closure, the closure rate approaches a constant value. Numerical modeling of the corejack tests using a creep law containing both transient and steady-state creep functions does not provide results that agree with the responses measured in the corejack tests. Using an experimental design technique plus additional numerical modeling that includes yielding of the salt, results in identification of the significant parameters which allow agreement. The significance of the results from the study is demonstrated by comparing the postulated stability and creep response of a solution-mined cavern using the previous understanding of salt behavior and the understanding developed from this study.

Jan 1, 1985

By F. W. Osterwald, C. R. Dunrud

A continuously recording seismic network was constructed in 1962 by the U.S. Geological Survey to locate epicenters and record incidence of bumps (bounces, rock bursts) that occur in the bituminous coal mines of the Book Cliffs coal field near Sunny-side, Utah. The coal is mined because of its value as coking coal, although these bumps may be a hazard to life and property. Daily records of tremors caused by bumps for 1 3/4 years indicate that a seasonal pattern, as well as a daily pattern, exists for the number of bumps that occur in a given period. Maxima occur in May and June and November and December. Marked increases at 5-day to 9-day intervals are superimposed on these seasonal maxima. The largest bumps commonly occur during seasonal maxima when the rate of occurrence suddenly decreases and the amplitude of the individual bumps increases. Knowledge of this pattern may lead to prediction of general locations and periods of increased hazard from bumps. Experience to date has shown that prediction of precise times and locations of hazardous bumps is not possible, and may never be; primarily because even a small bump can be a hazard to life and property. Some bumps or bump sequences are actually composites, consisting or two or more discrete bumps a few tenths of a second to a few seconds apart. Violent and spontaneous releases of coal and rock from faces, ribs and roofs of mines (termed bumps or bounces by miners) are a common hazard to life and property in the coal mines located in the Book Cliffs near Sunnyside, Utah (Fig. 1). These bumps

Jan 1, 1965

By New kensington P. A, W. L. Fink, H. R. Freche

The investigation of aluminum alloy systems prior to 1923 was severely handicapped by the low purity of the best aluminum available. However, by that time, the electrolytic purification of aluminum had been developed by the Aluminum Company of America,(1)† and in May, 1923, there was initiated, under the direction of E. H. Dix, Jr.,(2) a program for the investigation of the aluminum-alloy systems using the purest electrolytically refined aluminum. Up to the present time 15 papers (3) have been published, most of which are on the binary aluminum systems. Work is now in progress on the ternary systems, and it seems probable that most of the future work will be on ternary systems. Therefore this survey of the binary aluminum systems investigatcd up to the present time (the sixteenth paper of the series) concludes the first phase of this program. Certain qualitative relations between corresponding portions of the various binary diagrams as well as between different parts of the same diagram were noted some time ago by R. S. Archer.(4) In the present paper these relations and others are considered quantitatively by the application of well-known thermodynamic equations or by newly discovered empirical relations. No attempt will be made here to present the history of the development of the thermodynamic equations defining equilibrium or their application to metallic systems, although a list of references is given at the end of this paper for those who are interested in this phase of the subject. Two thermodynamic equations, which will be employed extensively in this paper, are: loge x1 = - L/RT + C

Jan 1, 1934

By Robert Bosworth

THE liability for damages to the surface caused by subsidence is an ever present threat in all underground mining. In ordinary lode mining, this threat rarely materializes into an action, due to the method of mining metaliferous ores, the dip of the veins, and the nature of the ground itself. In the mining of coal, however, this threat is very real. The coal frequently lies close to the surface, in beds underlying large areas of land the surface of which is suitable for agricultural or urban development. Furthermore, the coal is generally mined by the "room and pillar " method and when the pillars of coal are removed, the subjacent support is destroyed. This question of the duty of surface support has now become a very live one in Colorado. What was waste prairie land a few years .ago, has become valuable agricultural land dotted here and there with growing towns. Frequent references will be made here to Colorado conditions and adjudicated cases, but those conditions and cases and the conclusions to be drawn therefrom are equally applicable to all coal-mining states. Briefly stated, the question is "Does the owner of the substrata or underlying mineral, owe any duty of surface support to the owner of the superjacent strata or surface?" There is no absolute duty of support owed by the mineral owner and this assertion is made with full knowledge of numerous expressions to the contrary by courts of Pennsylvania, Illinois, Colorado and other coal-mining states. Whether or not any duty exists depends upon the circumstances surrounding each case, and since in the nature of things those circumstances are rarely identical, there can be no absolute rule.

Jan 1, 1927

By V. R. Garrias, R. V. Whetsel

The present study is intended as a preliminary statistical survey of the world&apos;s production of petroleum substitutes. The information presented is admittedly deficient. It is believed, however, that the increasing importance of these substitutes, particularly with Europe at war, justifies its presentation at this time, if for no other Table i.—Petroleum Subsiitues From Natural Gas Prom Coal Methane Liquid gas Liquid gas _ Manufactured gas Natural gasoline Gasoline Methyl alcohol Benzol Lubricants Etc. reason than to encourage enlightened pertinent discussion. The world&apos;s production in 1939 of petroleum substitutes—of which approxi-mately 97 per cent are direct substitutes for motor fuels—is tentatively estimated at 108,ooo,ooo bbl., or equivalent to the combined output of crude oil in 1939 of Rumania, Mexico and Colombia. With few exceptions, these figures of production represent also actual figures of consumption. The United States, owing mainly to its output of natural gasoline, leads all countries in the production of these products, with about 53 per cent of the total. In European countries, particularly Germany, the imminence of war in 1939 forced an increase in production and im- provement of methods of manufacturing motor fuels, largely from coal, with the result that this country produced in that year over 20,000,000 bbl. of substitutes. Since the beginning of hostilities, substitutes have offered more and more the means of meeting the unfavorable balance between supply and demand in European tes and Their Source Malerial From Oil From Molasses. Wood Shales Potatoes, Molasses.etc. From wood Shale oil Ethyl alcohol Producer gas Gasoline Methyl alcohol Gas oil Lubricants Etc. countries; the increase in production of these products being at least in part offset by the systematic bombing of synthetic plants and oil storage. The source materials and the resulting substitutes are listed in Table I. The following are the approximate gross heat equivalents of some substitutes to barrels of gasoline:

Jan 1, 1941