GASOLINE FOR EVERYBODY

[Music] gasoline powerful stuff modern magic [Music] our lives our business our cities are patterned on motor transportation which gasoline has made possible [Music] do you realize what gasoline means to this country it has added a new freedom to our lives the freedom of movement of individual transportation anywhere anytime for everybody in america [Music] and those who make and sell gasoline perform a service not only to their communities but to the whole country but most people just don't realize how much hard work knowledge and money it takes before gasoline can come out of a pump and into the tank of an automobile first there is the search to find the crude oil that's needed to make gasoline and that takes plenty of study and special training they send out crews to make surveys of territories that seem promising just like prospecting for gold in the old days only these men are scientists they sink test holes and use super sensitive instruments to find out what the earth is like far below the surface if the experts decide the results show the possibility of oil they are ready for the next step usually they first drill a hole to get actual samples of the earth itself cores that show exactly what the earth is like at different levels the oil engineers can tell if these samples come from a place that contains crude oil how good it is and how much there is then another big tough expensive job gets underway clearing the land for drilling maybe even building roads through wild rough country oil drilling goes on all the time thousands of new wells are drilled every year and because of the scientific way they go about it today over half of these new wells deliver oil next there's the job of getting this crude oil from the wells to the refineries a lot of it travels through pipes thousands of miles of pipes some pipelines extend halfway across the country and plenty of crude oil is carried in tankers they also transport finished gasoline to every part of the world these tankers form one of the biggest merchant fleets we have and the railroads they carry oil from the gathering tanks to the refineries and then gasoline from the refineries to distribution points all over america the process of refining crude oil into gasoline and other products is another big part of a big industry it takes millions and millions of dollars worth of equipment to turn out finished petroleum products it's a complicated process but not at all difficult to understand when you realize that every drop of crude oil is a mixture of many small particles or molecules they're called hydrocarbons because they are compounds containing only hydrogen and carbon the molecules vary in relative size and weight the large heavy molecules are found in the heavier oils the fuel oils lubricating oils tar asphalt and so on in what you might call the medium sizes you find smaller and lighter molecules and these are what are used for gasoline and kerosene and similar products the very small and very light molecules are the natural gases as it comes from the well the crude oil contains molecules of all sizes the first step is to separate them the crude oil is heated in a furnace and the hot oil is pumped into a fractionating tower the proper temperature is maintained in the tower by recirculating part of the oil through the furnace the heavy molecules in liquid form concentrate at the bottom of the tower and are drawn off for use as heavy oils the lighter molecules vaporize and with the natural gases move to the top of the column this mixture of gases and oil vapors flows into a condenser the vapors condense into liquid gasoline the next step is to separate the gases from the gasoline this is done in a second fractionating tower the gases move to the top of the tower and are drawn on the liquid gasoline concentrates at the bottom of the tower this is what we call straight run gasoline [Music] in the early days of the automobile this straight run was the only kind of gasoline we had but as public demand increased new ways had to be found to get more gasoline from a given amount of crude oil so the oil industry developed what is called the thermal cracking process certain of the larger molecules of heavy oil are literally cracked into smaller molecules in or near the gasoline range in the fractionating tower the oil molecules tend to collect at various levels according to their size that's why they call it a fractionating tower the molecules collect in groups or fractions this makes it easy to take off the group of medium weight molecules that are best suited for use as cracking stock these molecules are piped to a thermal cracking furnace where by heat and pressure they are cracked into smaller molecules at the same time a lot of other things happen to the chemical structure of the molecules and a kind of synthetic crude oil results with molecules of all sizes but almost half of them are in the gasoline range this goes into a flash tower where the smaller molecules vaporize those that are too heavy are drawn off and used as asphalt coke tar and so on the lighter molecules move to the top of the tower and then to a condenser where they again become liquid to separate them they go to another fractionating tower the heavier oil collects at the bottom and is drawn off as cracked fuel oil the lighter molecules move toward the top condense and are taken off at their proper level as thermally cracked gasoline the gases formed during the cracking process move to the extreme top of the tower and are piped off also to obtain more gasoline some of the cracked fuel oil is piped back to the thermal cracking furnace and goes through a second cracking process again increasing the amount of gasoline obtained from a given quantity of crude oil in recent years the industry has tremendously expanded the comparatively new cracking process called catalytic cracking a catalyst is a substance which causes a desired reaction to take place without being affected itself in cracking gasoline the catalyst is in the form of beads or a fine powder like material in this process heavier molecules of oil below the gasoline range are piped into a furnace and heated the hot oil vapors then go into the catalyst tower where they contact the catalyst this not only cracks the molecules down to smaller size but changes their chemical structure to make them suitable for gasoline these smaller molecules then go to a condenser where they become liquid and then to a fractionating tower again the liquid that is too heavy for gasoline collects at the bottom and is drawn off as cracked fuel oil gasoline is drawn off at its proper level and this is what we call catalytically cracked gasoline in many operations even more gasoline is obtained by sending some of the catalytically cracked fuel oil into the thermal cracking process [Music] the gases as usual collect at the top and are piped off in every process gases have been produced these used to be burned away as waste or used as gas but to conserve our natural resources and to obtain the largest possible amount of gasoline from the crude oil the oil industry discovered how to make gasoline from some of these gases too by a process of polymerization this is just the reverse of cracking polymerization simply means combining very small molecules to form larger molecules so the smaller molecules that are lighter than gasoline are combined into larger molecules from which gasoline can be made the gas is piped into a furnace and heated the hot gas goes to a catalyst tower by contact with a suitable catalyst usually phosphoric acid a chemical reaction occurs which causes the molecules to unite and form larger molecules these larger molecules go into a fractionating tower those in the gasoline range condense to liquid and this is drawn off as polymer gasoline those that are still too light are drawn off the top as fuel gas so we have four main types of gasoline refining processes straight run in which gasoline is vaporized from crude oil by simple heating thermal cracking in which heat and pressure are used to split heavy oil molecules into smaller molecules suitable for gasoline catalytic cracking in which a catalyst is used to split heavier oil molecules and the polymer process in which small gas molecules are combined to form larger molecules and condense to liquid certain of these processes produce gasoline of superior anti-knock quality gasoline from other processes can be stepped up by blending with materials such as alkalate or benzoyl most refiners however find it advantageous to add ethyl brand of anti-knock compound to their gasoline it ensures high anti-knock quality for their entire output for more than 20 years ethel brand of anti-knock compound has helped the petroleum industry to bring out better and better gasoline and during these past years you have seen what better gasoline has meant in producing better automobiles with engines that give increasingly better power and better performance this progress is the result of the constant endeavor of the oil and automotive companies to fit engines to fuels and fuels to engines an endeavor in which ethel research engineers today as in years past are working in close cooperation with both industries and as our progressive american oil industry with research and ingenuity continues to improve gasoline automotive engineers will design new and better engines capable of converting this extra available power into greater efficiency more economy faster smoother more resilient power on the highway on the farm in the air and on the water for this is the age of motor transportation with gasoline for everybody