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62 comments on Getting gas from Crude

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MUDLOGGER on March 13, 2006 - 8:11am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
The F-T Process reached a maximum at 16000 barrels per day
in 1944.  The German armed forces were still chronically short of all liquid fuels. Most evident in the battle of the Ardennes when even the crack units involved in the  attack were not equipped with enough fuel to reach the Meuse River. They were supposed to capture it along the way. Most German tanks just ran out of fuel and were abandoned rather than lost to US action.
F-T is very inefficient. But when desperate and have access to slave labour then you will try anything.
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Don Sailorman on March 13, 2006 - 8:29am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
German tanks were always running out of fuel. One big reason that the defeated Brits got away at Dunkirk was that the panzers were immobilized from both lack of fuel and also the fact that the tankers had been going on benzedrine for about a week with no sleep at all.

My recollection from Speer's memoirs is that oil production from coal peaked higher and later than you state, but Speer could have been wrong, or (Yes, it has happened a couple of times.) my memory could be in error.

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MUDLOGGER on March 13, 2006 - 9:03am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Agreed.
The Germans were always chronically short of gas, made much worse after the loss of the Rumanian Oil fields.
In fact , perhaps The Second World War should really be  called 'The First Oil War'. Japan and Germany both
had the same problems. Anyway, thats history. I believe that South Africa has made the best shot at the
F-T Process during the years when they were under economic sanctions. But again, more I think from desperation than economics.
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davebygolly on March 13, 2006 - 11:00pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
It HAS been called the first oil war, but I forget by whom.
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joule on March 13, 2006 - 11:33am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
MUDLOGGER -

I suspect you might have slipped a decimal place there, and that it should really be 160,000 barrels per day instead of 16,000.

While I don't have the German synthetic fuel production for 1944, one of my military books cites a 1940 production of 4.25 million metric tons. That would translate into an equivalent average daily production rate of roughly 78,000 barrels per day. So, if the Germans ramped up production to reach a maximum in 1944, that would constitute about a doubling over the 1940 production level, and therefore indicating that 160,000 barrels per day is very likely the correct number.

While it took a tremendous effort on the part of the Germans to attain this level of synthetic fuel production, by modern standards it's pretty tiny, about the output of a medium-size oil refinery.

I bring this up not to nit pick about German production numbers but to perhaps add some perspective on what a major undertaking it will be to get even several million barrels per day of additional coal-to-liquid production.  

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MUDLOGGER on March 13, 2006 - 2:38pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Yikes!
pay attention Mudlogger.
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