fast!!How many gallons of gas do you get from one barrel of crude oil after being refined?
It depends on the grade of the crude oil. There are various web pages, each of them apparently believing that it is describing ';typical'; crude oil, which quote gasoline percentage yields from 25 to 50 including 30, 40, and 45 along the way. So in U.S. gallons, that would be from 10.5 to 21 gallons of gasoline per 42-gallon barrel of crude.
However, that initial figure is a so-called ';straight run'; figure, where all the hydrocarbons which are too heavy to be in gasoline are merely separated out. The huge ';catalytic cracker'; columns in oil refineries fragment these heavies into light enough hydrocarbons to include in the gasoline, so the final yield should be from 40 to 75 per cent. It still depends on the grade of crude which you start with.
';Heavy'; and ';light'; here refer to the number of carbon atoms per molecule in each compound. C5 and less are gases, especially C3 propane and C4 butane. C8 is ';octane';, so the gasoline-grade liquids are around there, then the heavier liquids are diesel oil, heating oil, and bunker oil for ships.
So it all depends not just on the grade of crude, but on economics, the time of year, and even the weather. The markets for each weight of component are seasonal, so in the summer, it might be economical to crack some extra heavy components into holiday motoring fuel, but in winter to just market them directly as heating oil instead.How many gallons of gas do you get from one barrel of crude oil after being refined?
17.6
