Interesting question.

Couple of thoughts. (well four actually)

1. The price at the pump is mostly Tax.

2. It's all one process. You crack your barrel of oil into all the components and sell each product at whatever price you can with the overhead spread out accross the range. If you doubled the price of deisel everyone would switch to petrol.

3. At one time the refineries used to flare off the petrol as there was no market for it.

4. I would be interested to know if I would be right in thinking that fuel is the least profitable part of the barrel as oppposed to chemicals, plastics lubricating oils etc.

regards Martin

The price has nothing to do with how much of any one fraction one might get from a barrel.

Little fifferent than mixing one gallon of water with two gallons of oil – on separation, the one gallon of water is not worth twice that of the oil.

Cost and worth are not the same thing with oil fractions.

A barrel of oil can be fractionated, initially into the full range of boiling point components – from gases, volatile liquids, less volatile liquids, to (eventually) remaining solids. This would vary with the type of crude, particularly dependent on origin (north sea oil is more valuable as it contains more of the lighter components).

Further refining can be arranged to crack the longer carbon chain constituents into smaller carbon chain liquids and gases.

Each stage costs money and the final range of products may each have a different value, dependent on how useful they might be. Fuels for burning are not particularly exciting, do not require so much refining and have less value than feedstocks for, say, plastics production. The design of the cracking process can tailored to achieve different ratios of final products (more, or less, of one constituent compared with another),

I note a trend in this type of thread, from this poster, which have undertones of 'diesel haters'. Very much akin to nimbyism where renewable energy instalkations might be involved. The OP, I think, needs to look more closely at the refining industry before jumping to incorrect conclusions in order to try to stir up more hysterical claptrap about different oil fractions. Diesel is not only burned in vehicle engines. The same fraction, and closely related ones, are burned in oil fired central heating installations which are still a popular choice for home heating in places which do not have gas mains.

I read somewhere that petrol and diesel are the waste products of the oil cracking process

Not Done It Yet, I think you are on to something and Vic the original poster is on a soapbox as a diesel hater. I am just about to buy another car and yup tis a 3 litre diesel.

Diesel haters as maybe, but the reality is that diesel haters could not live if they boycotted buying any and all goods that didn't come to them under diesel power. It's all well and good having these green feelings, but real life doesn't work like that!

Vic and Diesel are like Blowlamp and Bitcoin…

Please enlighten, or do you mean the same as 'like a dog with a bone'?

Never owned a Diesel – so I cannot really say too much about them.

I owned a 3ltr Alfa Romeo for 12 years (from new – and she was called Bella) and (this may surprise you) but she used to sing to me. I have to tell you that I really loved that car and I still miss her – which is a strange thing to admit really. I now drive her younger sister (Bel) who is so modest that she only costs me £30 a year in road tax (instead of £300).

But whilst I'm very fond of Bel, I'm afraid my heart remains elsewhere…

Now what were we talking about – oh yes – Diesels…

IanT

It's not a question of liking or not liking progress Vic, and progress isn't always a good thing, but of accepting the reality of life today, as we live it, as it is presented to us, as is factual today, not as we might like it to be in some dreamy wishful way. We have what we have.

When technology has moved on then something else will be presented to us, but in the meantime diesel – and oil of other extractions – powers all transport of goods as well as most folk, except for some electric trains, and will do for the forseeable future. It also powers some of the electric power station that supply the national grid, so even if we use electric power oil is sometimes the provider of that electric power.

It may not be what you want but is what you have, and will have for quite a while yet.

Over here in Ireland, Diesel is 10c / ltr cheaper than petrol.

About 12 years ago we were all 'persuaded' to buy diesel vehicles because of the evil petrol pollution. Now the Greenies want to bring the cost of petrol up to match diesel because of the evil diesel pollution, and they wonder why they don't get any votes.

Dave
The Emerald Isle

Things will most likely go full circle and in a few years time petrol will become the new evil. I love my diesels, over 35 years with one old series Land Rover, no pollution involved in making me another one to drive. I ran a Perkins "Prima" engine Montego for 248000 miles with just a new water pump and a wheel bearing. All the time returning 54 MPG. Which pollutes most ? I would have worn two or three petrol engine cars out in that time.

Chris and others have missed the underlying issue. Burning petrol and diesel both cause pollution.

How serious vehicle pollution is depends partly on where you live : I guess Chris happily chugging around in a 35 year old Landrover is more likely to live in rural mid-Wales than central London. In London pollution is serious because there is a much higher concentration of vehicles and people in a confined space. The results are evident in London's breathing related health statistics and visible damage to buildings.

Out on the open road pollution isn't obvious. First hand experience is misleading. If you're confident your petrol or diesel car is clean, try driving it into a single garage, closing the door, and revving the engine for an hour. Don't blame me if you end up in hospital or worse.

The reason diesel was pushed in the past was because diesel engines are more efficient; less CO and CO₂ per mile. Unfortunately, the idea missed a problem not well understood at the time. Diesels produce large quantities of unhealthy particulates, that is very small particles that stick in the lungs. The recommendation to use diesel was a mistake, and – very sensibly – the mistake is now being corrected. Diesel being dirtier than expected doesn't mean that petrol is suddenly 'clean', it's just the lesser of two evils.

Pollution is a double whammy. First are the ill-effects of up-close and personal pollution on health, second is the accumulation of green-house gasses in the upper atmosphere and the long term consequences of that continuing. If you don't believe in the scientific evidence behind Global Warming, preferring to think it's some kind of conspiracy, please explain what is causing world-wide average temperatures to increase. Announcing that the effect is a 'normal' fluctuation isn't an explanation, it's a wish.

What to do about pollution is hard. Humanity has never had it so good. Burning carbon is so easy. Trouble is, unless we change, the party will come to an end. That's bad enough, but the bill is looking to be much bigger than expected. I've no idea how our grand-children will pay it.

Dave

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 04/11/2017 09:47:22

It has been reported that CO2 levels are the highest they have been for a while, at the same time we are being discouraged from driving diesels…..

John