Bay Area refineries mod

[Central Blue]

If I wanted to do a small mod to give the Bay Area its refineries back, would it be as simple as say: subtracting the production of Bakersfield from LA/LB and giving some to the Frisco hex (Union Oil at Oleum and Standard Oil at Richmond) and some to the East Bay hex (Shell at Martinez and Associated at Avon and AMORCO)? Would the oil from Bakersfield move to the refineries or just pile up?

[wdolson]

The Bay Area never had much oil and gas.  Bakersfield has/had the largest continental American oil field outside of Texas.  In game, Bakersfield's production is probably less than it actually was in real life.  The Midway/Sunset oilfield is massive.  Bakerfield also has some smaller oil fields.  (My sister is a geologist in Bakersfield and cut her teeth doing production geology in the Midway/Sunset field.)

Oil will move from production source to a refinery in much the same way fuel moves.  Oil currently moves from Bakersfield to Los Angeles.

Bill

[Central Blue]

ORIGINAL: wdolson

The Bay Area never had much oil and gas.  Bakersfield has/had the largest continental American oil field outside of Texas.  In game, Bakersfield's production is probably less than it actually was in real life.  The Midway/Sunset oilfield is massive.  Bakerfield also has some smaller oil fields.  (My sister is a geologist in Bakersfield and cut her teeth doing production geology in the Midway/Sunset field.)

Oil will move from production source to a refinery in much the same way fuel moves.  Oil currently moves from Bakersfield to Los Angeles.

Bill

All of the refineries I mentioned were founded before WWI and are still going strong today. For Shell and Standard Oil, Martinez and Richmond were their first forays on the Left Coast. The bulk of the crude came by pipeline in those days, and I believe a fair amount still does -- depending on the refiner.

If Bakersfield's production in game terms is less than what it was IRL, then the total production is probably the appropriate amount to represent the crude that wasn't moving by vessel. I have some recent production figures (freely available online to diligent googlistas) for the historical terminals that I can use to divvy up the production from the valley between the refineries on San Pablo Bay and those up river in Martinez.

Thank you for the info on whether I can expect crude to move to refineries as expected.

It's a very small crusade. [;)]

[Central Blue]

For the historically minded:

Shell

In 1913, under the auspices of the American Gasoline Company, the Royal Dutch/Shell Group built a shipping terminal along the Carquinez Strait in Martinez to import and distribute gasoline along the Pacific Coast. This was the beginning of a long history of achievement for what would become the Martinez Refining Company.

In August 1913, the company purchased oilfields in California's Central Valley. By the following year, it began construction of the refinery in Martinez and on a 170-mile pipeline to transport oil to its new facility. Completed in 1915, the refinery was Shell's first in the United States.

Standard Oil of California

After buying 500 acres of rolling lands on the northeast shore of San Francisco Bay in 1901, Standard completed the Richmond Refinery a year later. To feed this new colossus of West Coast refineries, Standard laid a pipeline from Richmond to the prolific new oil fields at Kern River and Coalinga.

Avon and AMORCO

A subsidiary of the Associated Oil Company was formed in 1907, called the Associated Pipe Line Company (APL). With the Southern Pacific Company providing property along its railroad tracks, construction began on an eight-inch Pipeline made of specially designed rifled pipe, which ran from the Bakersfield Kern river oil fields to Port Costa.

Union Oil at Oleum.

I know they had a refinery there in 1896, but I am still looking for details on whether they had a pipeline by WWII

[wdolson]

Some of the oil is moved by train today.  Shell has a special refinery in Los Angeles that deals with the heavy, tarlike crude coming out of the Bakersfield/Kern County (Bakersfield is the Kern County seat) oil fields.  There is a special tanker train that moves the oil to LA.

These days most of the refining capacity in the Bay Area is refining Alaska crude.  Back in WW II most of their crude came from the San Joaquin Valley and a bit from oil fields on the west side of the coast ranges. 

There are some excellent books about the history of the oil fields in Kern County.  I forget the titles right now, but some of them are an entertaining read.

Bill

[Central Blue]

Call me crazy...

California refinery production in 1920

Daily production for the Bay Area refineries ran to 134,000 bbls. While the entire rest of the state refined 162,000 bbls per day. So the Bay Area alone accounted for roughly 45% of refinery capacity in the state of California.

As of July 2009:

The Bay Area was refining 831,000 bbls per day, with the entire rest of the state refining around 1,230,000 bbls per day. So the Bay Area is still refining roughly 40% of the supply in the state.

[Central Blue]

ORIGINAL: wdolson

These days most of the refining capacity in the Bay Area is refining Alaska crude.  Back in WW II most of their crude came from the San Joaquin Valley and a bit from oil fields on the west side of the coast ranges. 

Alaska isn't what it used to be. Production is declining and the requirement that it all be brought to the US ended years ago.

The San Joaquin Valley takes in a lot of oil producing areas. The various links I have posted, including the 1921 FTC report, do a fair job of describing where the oil was coming from in the early days. Shell was piping it in from Coalinga, Union was in Coalinga and on the coast, Standard and Associated were getting it from further south like Kern River and Midway as well as the coast.

[Andrew Brown]

All very interesting.

If anyone has figures for how much was pumped and/or refined in various places I can make use of the figures.

Andrew

[JWE]

ORIGINAL: Andrew Brown
All very interesting.
If anyone has figures for how much was pumped and/or refined in various places I can make use of the figures.
Andrew

Not sure this out of game scope, Andrew. Central Blue, please correct me if i'm wrong here. But I think that "Oil" is ok, but maybe move a chunk (40% or so) of LA's refinery capacity to the Bay Area?

That's still gonna be a witch, because there really ain't no Richmond (it's Alameda); so it's SF, Alameda, Mare Island, all pretty lousy choices for refineries; great choices for shipyards; dogonne choices bite, don't they?

Wouldn't be averse to some refinery capacity in the Bay Area, but where? With all due respect to Central Blue, this might be an exercise in dimishing returns. But am very cool with what you decide.

[wdolson]

There are other places on the map where bases ended up combining things and in seemingly the wrong place.   The Whidbey Island NAS looks like its out on the Olympic Peninsula, the hex centers on Port Townsend, WA.  The NAS is on the east side of Puget Sound, but putting it there would have made it look more inland than it was.

All three Bay Area hexes have extra slots that refineries could go into.

Bill

[Central Blue]

ORIGINAL: Andrew Brown

All very interesting.

If anyone has figures for how much was pumped and/or refined in various places I can make use of the figures.

Andrew

If I find anything after 1920 and before 1945 I'll post it here. In the meantime, I will think about diverting 35-40% of California refining capacity to the Bay Area to account for diversion of coastal shipping, barging, and rail to other activities than moving crude that couldn't be moved by pipeline.

Central Blue, please correct me if i'm wrong here. But I think that "Oil" is ok, but maybe move a chunk (40% or so) of LA's refinery capacity to the Bay Area?

That's still gonna be a witch, because there really ain't no Richmond (it's Alameda); so it's SF, Alameda, Mare Island, all pretty lousy choices for refineries; great choices for shipyards; dogonne choices bite, don't they?

Yes, just the refineries I drive by. I don't intend to try and figure out where the Coalinga oil hex should be. Let someone living in the Valley do their own mod. [;)]

As the map is drawn, Richmond and Oleum are clearly in the Frisco hex (Richmond under the airbase icon and Oleum just north), while Shell and Associated are in the East Bay (vice Alameda) hex right on the south shore where the rail and highway cross the river. So unless there is some practical limitation on how many assets can be sited in a hex... I don't really care if Oleum, Martinez, or Richmond appear on the map by name.

At the very least there would be no more complaints about waiting for Frisco to fill up with fuel.

[wdolson]

Colinga would be one of the hexes between Bakersfield and Stockton.  Closer to Stockton than Bakersfield. It's on the western side of the Valley.  Today it's one of those small oases of gas stations and fast food restaurants off of I-5.  The real town is about 10 miles east of the freeway, but few people go there anymore.

There was a military base there closed in the 1990s.  I think it was a training base in WW II.

Bill

[Central Blue]

ORIGINAL: wdolson

There are other places on the map where bases ended up combining things and in seemingly the wrong place.   The Whidbey Island NAS looks like its out on the Olympic Peninsula, the hex centers on Port Townsend, WA.  The NAS is on the east side of Puget Sound, but putting it there would have made it look more inland than it was.

All three Bay Area hexes have extra slots that refineries could go into.

Bill

Speaking of the Northwest... I wonder about the history of refineries and facilities up there, like Willbridge, Anacortes, and March Point. But I'll let someone else turn that pile.

I assume your sister got to Bakersfield some time after 1912? [;)]

[Central Blue]

ORIGINAL: wdolson

There was a military base there closed in the 1990s.  I think it was a training base in WW II.

Bill

Pretty much the story in California except San Diego and wherever the Coast Guard is.

[Central Blue]

I will add links here as I find them.

Let's start with a 1942 article from Life. Not detailed enough to cause rearrangement of production and refining, but the large map might be useful for some to plan their oil trade routes.

[Central Blue]

I'm back from volcano country and have put this into effect with the latest up to date hot fix.

The only thing I notice is that there is some oil piling up in LA, San Francisco, and East Bay -- vice Alameda. If too much piles up, I will do a little research on historical refinery capacity for Portland and Puget Sound and maybe give back some of the small refineries in Bakersfield, Port San Luis, and elsewhere in California.

I couldn't find a better source than the 1921 FTC report, nor could I find any information to suggest that any of the previously mentioned pipelines was taken off line. So I did a little work with pencil and paper to figure out the percentages for the three refineries supplied by pipeline and used that to subtract refinery capacity from LA.

Using the 1921 figures probably undercuts the capacity of what could have gone to Port Costa with her two 8 inch pipelines. But those were the only figures I had, and the difference wouldn't be that great -- maybe plus 65 for the East Bay, unless the crude was being sold to Union Oil, in which case, plus 65 for the Frisco hex.

Final numbers on refinery capacity were Frisco - 505, East Bay - 440, LA - 1555.

Why did I change the name of the hex from Alameda to East Bay? Because all of the really important stuff in Alameda County (the NAS, the Port of Oakland, the SOCAL refinery, Point Molate, Bezerkeley, etc.) is actually in the Frisco hex. A better name for that hex might be Martinez, or Contra Costa, or Carquinez Straight, if anyone feels that Hercules (the powder works) and Pittsburg (steel mills and Camp Stoneman) are being slighted by going with the Martinez label. Carquinez gives a better feel for where things were really happening in that hex since the game doesn't model agriculture or nuclear labs.

Now that I think about it, that hex probably does deserve some heavy industry. But I have no idea how to assign those numbers. And most, if not all of the dry dock capacity should probably be assigned to the Frisco hex if one were to go strictly by the geography depicted. But I will leave those calculations to different types of fanatics. [;)]