Pat Dolan
Veteran Member
just for the record: it is not a matter of "diesel comes off before gasoline" when refining because refining is a LOT more than one simple step of distillation (which is assigned a Nelson complexity base number of 1). there are two big variables, one on the front end (crude feedstock) and one on the backend (market). If you just took the distillates off the first tower, both would be similar in cost - BUT - very high - because you might have a lot of the wrong product for your market. To make what you need, in both quantity and chemistry, there are a bunch of steps to take the rest of the barrel and dis-assemble (crack) and reform different components to blend motor fuels. In the days before reformulation, even the most complex refinery (able to take a full range of different feedstocks) had complexity numbers well under 10. To make modern fuels (second variable) the peak complexity number is now 15ish. The cost of diesel vs. gasoline is not a fixed ratio, but depends upon what feedstocks and what proportion of what product you are making.
I think you could just use your plant accounting methods to declare either one more or less expensive to produce, and on top of that, each refinery would have a different range of real costs associated.
All of that said: sulphur levels are reduced for pretty much everything (depending relative to how much was in the crude to begin with) but it DOES cost more do more of that one single component of making diesel vs. gasoline when one requires lower sulphur level than the other. But that is a long way from the only cost associated with making either product.
I think you could just use your plant accounting methods to declare either one more or less expensive to produce, and on top of that, each refinery would have a different range of real costs associated.
All of that said: sulphur levels are reduced for pretty much everything (depending relative to how much was in the crude to begin with) but it DOES cost more do more of that one single component of making diesel vs. gasoline when one requires lower sulphur level than the other. But that is a long way from the only cost associated with making either product.
. All joking aside, my last car was an '02 MINI. The early cars like mine had issues with the power steering pumps going out leading to a $1k+ repair. I went 136k miles with no problems besides a little weep from the hoses but many had to replace their pumps. Last year (10 years after this all started), I got a letter from MINI saying they extended the warranty on PS pumps for 12 yr/150k miles. Or maybe it was 10/120. Either way, I was surprised so maybe VW will eventually do something similar.
