I was looking for the price of oil today and came across how a barrel of oil is broken down. Now I'm not approaching this from a green view purely an economic view so a barrel is broken down as follows:

10% LPG's - Ethane, Propane, Butane - Uses, heating cooking, motor gasoline blending.

35% Light Ends - Naphthas, Gasolines - Uses, Reforming into petrol, petrochemical feedstocks.

35% Middle distillates - Uses, Jet Kerosene, Diesel, Heating gasoil - uses, aviation fuel, automtive fuel, domestic heating fuel, distilled to lighter product.

20% Residual fuel oil - Asphalt, bitumens, coke, sulphur - Uses, ship fuel oil, road surfacing, roofing, manufacturing of steel, chemical industry.

What struck me straight away was how little of a barrel be used for LPG.

So now consider for a moment that by taxation and legislation the government succeed in converting many of us to LPG...... demand for LPG rises... but only 10% of a barrel can be used for its production vs 70% available to Diesel and petrol... so what happens to the price of LPG when demand outstrips supply...of the course the price rises!!!! And then having lost all the tax on petrol / diesel the government switch to taxing LPG, after all it's cleaner, but not clean so they start taxing LPG heavily.

Bang Double Whammy!!

Can anyone tell me I'm wrong? or confirm that the rest of a barrel can be distilled into LPG (even though presumably during distillation a lot of the barrel is wasted)

Dave

 

Exactly my fears too.

The price of LPG has already gone up with companies getting greedy (more profit). Surely at some point the government will want a bigger slice. After all the car is EVIL and all of this country's problems are caused by it excuse: pollution congestion etc.

My next point - what is the most pollutant form of travel? - Aviation. Why are'nt they taxed, why are'nt they forced to use catalysts (or equivelant) closed loop control, unleaded fuel. Or taxed in the same way?

Cars are cash cows and the government will milk them - always, even when we run on electric, or hydrogen - giving only water vapour as emissions....we'll get taxed for making it rain!!!

 

I guess what those stats show is the current usage of crude, and they could use 100% for lpg or whatever.

 

No, that's what you get out of a barrel of crude by fractional distillation. I think you can change some of the products by cracking and reforming, but essentially that's it.

See http://science.howstuffworks.com/oil-refining.htm

 

 

Good site, must remember that for the kids. So there you go, only 10% of a barrel can be used for car travel. This LPG is deffo going to be expensive in the long term.