Oil and Refineries

[vettim89]

Looking at some references, I think some of the oil and refinery numbers may be off.

First lets look at Japan's numbers

Pre-war Japan was importing some where around 4.5 m tons of oil a year representing 93% of her needs. Meaning the total oil use (imported and domestic) was roughly 4.83 m tons per year. Now it is safe in my mind to project that japan had the refining capacity to handle all that oil. In game terms that means that there should be roughly 1325 refinery centers in Japan or it's sphere of influence at wars start. Probably that should be a little higher to account for peace time vs. war time operating needs. Counting Port arthur but not bangkok, Japan has 1035 refinery centers at game's start in Scenario 1. So we seem a little short here. Looking at oil, according to some very good sources it estimates Japan's domestic oil production at 330,000 tons. That breaks down to about 90 oil centers in AE terms. The game gives Japan 230 oil centers counting Manchuko at game's start. Yoiks, something is way out of whack now isn't it?

Flipping it over it seems we are missing some oil centers on map though. Now here I do plead ignorance because I realize the devs may have bundled some fo the oil centers that were in close proximity together. So if some of these are actually in the game but hidden, I apologize. Here are some numbers that are from Van Royen so I think they are pretty good (I discovered my local library has a copy and I may spend a Saturday or Sunday afternoon down there real soon). Production is in million barrels per year in 1940

Miri 2.1
Seria (Bunei) 3.2
Lutong (Brunei) 2.1
Kuching 2.0 (no center there in AE)
Balikpapan 7.4 (appears this includes Samarinda)
Banka Penang 2.0 (Also 10 k tons of tin produced here a year)
Palembang 30.0
Pontianac 2.1 (No center here in AE)
Surabaya 1.0
Tarakan 5.1

For refence a million barrels is roughly 153,000 tons (AE oil point) of oil. That is 419 tons (points)/day or a oil center size 42. Using that formula, this is what the oil centers should look like

Miri 88
Brunei (combined) 223
Kuching 84
Balikpapan/Samarinda 311
Banka Penang 84
Palembang 1260
Pontianac 88
Surabaya 42
Tarakan 214

Some of these are way out of whack with the map (Palembag and Tarakan way under, Surabaya way over as examples). I need to get down to the library to look at Van Royen but it gives food for though. One thing I don't have is refinery output. There were refineries at Lutong (Miri/Brunei), Tarakan, Balikpapan, and Surabaya but other than Palembang it is hard to find out how much was processed locally versus shipped as crude for refining at the final destination. I do not know but my thinking is that what we should see is Japan needing to transport considerably more crude oil and less fuel to the HI.

Just some thoughts

[inqistor]

But what is the usage of oil/fuel by Japan? Is in-game demand, similar to this IRL, or is it scaled?
Actually, does coal also fall under oil in-game? And not ship-fuel, coal used by industry.

...

Damn, coal also will be used for manufacturing, so...

Only coal used for making energy [:D]

[vettim89]

ORIGINAL: inqistor

But what is the usage of oil/fuel by Japan? Is in-game demand, similar to this IRL, or is it scaled?
Actually, does coal also fall under oil in-game? And not ship-fuel, coal used by industry.

...

Damn, coal also will be used for manufacturing, so...

Only coal used for making energy [:D]

I'm pretty sure coal is a resource. The point is that while some oil was definitely refined in the SRA, what Japan needed was oil. The reinery at Palembang provided 70% of Japan's AvGas during the war, but that is supply not fuel. The refinery at Tarakan provided a lot of Japan's diesel fuel, but again that is supply not fuel.

The Centrifugal Offensive and Midway op basically expended Japan's fuel stores and from that point on, there was very little left for major operations. This remained until the end of the war. Point being that the oil in the SRA was insufficient for Japan to fight a full scle war. We hardly ever see the situation where the Japan player is out of fuel by mid 1942. While the game system works fine, it does not present all the realities of the war to either player.

[inqistor]

ORIGINAL: vettim89
The Centrifugal Offensive and Midway op basically expended Japan's fuel stores and from that point on, there was very little left for major operations.

That would mean, that game uses less fuel, than IRL, so increasing production will make the matter even worse. On the other way, decreasing it did not change anything, because there will be enough accumulated production to keep industry supplies into 1943 anyway, so it seems too low usage is the problem.

This remained until the end of the war. Point being that the oil in the SRA was insufficient for Japan to fight a full scle war.

Considering AARs it seems, that with heavy fighting fuel can be completely burned before mid-1943. I have seen 1mil in 100 turns. But Japanese players rarely keep full scale offensive all the time.

We hardly ever see the situation where the Japan player is out of fuel by mid 1942. While the game system works fine, it does not present all the realities of the war to either player.

Well, it is happening just now.

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: vettim89
I'm pretty sure coal is a resource.

Yes, coal is a resource.

By the way thanks for the oil production figures. I have found these very hard to find. I will have to check how they compare to my original notes.

Andrew

[Pascal_slith]

ORIGINAL: vettim89

Looking at some references, I think some of the oil and refinery numbers may be off.

First lets look at Japan's numbers

Pre-war Japan was importing some where around 4.5 m tons of oil a year representing 93% of her needs. Meaning the total oil use (imported and domestic) was roughly 4.83 m tons per year. Now it is safe in my mind to project that japan had the refining capacity to handle all that oil. In game terms that means that there should be roughly 1325 refinery centers in Japan or it's sphere of influence at wars start. Probably that should be a little higher to account for peace time vs. war time operating needs. Counting Port arthur but not bangkok, Japan has 1035 refinery centers at game's start in Scenario 1. So we seem a little short here. Looking at oil, according to some very good sources it estimates Japan's domestic oil production at 330,000 tons. That breaks down to about 90 oil centers in AE terms. The game gives Japan 230 oil centers counting Manchuko at game's start. Yoiks, something is way out of whack now isn't it?

Flipping it over it seems we are missing some oil centers on map though. Now here I do plead ignorance because I realize the devs may have bundled some fo the oil centers that were in close proximity together. So if some of these are actually in the game but hidden, I apologize. Here are some numbers that are from Van Royen so I think they are pretty good (I discovered my local library has a copy and I may spend a Saturday or Sunday afternoon down there real soon). Production is in million barrels per year in 1940

Miri 2.1
Seria (Bunei) 3.2
Lutong (Brunei) 2.1
Kuching 2.0 (no center there in AE)
Balikpapan 7.4 (appears this includes Samarinda)
Banka Penang 2.0 (Also 10 k tons of tin produced here a year)
Palembang 30.0
Pontianac 2.1 (No center here in AE)
Surabaya 1.0
Tarakan 5.1

For refence a million barrels is roughly 153,000 tons (AE oil point) of oil. That is 419 tons (points)/day or a oil center size 42. Using that formula, this is what the oil centers should look like

Miri 88
Brunei (combined) 223
Kuching 84
Balikpapan/Samarinda 311
Banka Penang 84
Palembang 1260
Pontianac 88
Surabaya 42
Tarakan 214

Some of these are way out of whack with the map (Palembag and Tarakan way under, Surabaya way over as examples). I need to get down to the library to look at Van Royen but it gives food for though. One thing I don't have is refinery output. There were refineries at Lutong (Miri/Brunei), Tarakan, Balikpapan, and Surabaya but other than Palembang it is hard to find out how much was processed locally versus shipped as crude for refining at the final destination. I do not know but my thinking is that what we should see is Japan needing to transport considerably more crude oil and less fuel to the HI.

Just some thoughts

Hi vettim89, I'm very interested in your references (I've been doing some work on pre-war world resource production). I found the list of certain references here: http://pwencycl.kgbudge.com/O/i/Oil.htm

One resource that doesn't show up in the previous list is "To Have and Have Not" by Jonathan Marshall (a study of the influence of SE Asian resources on pre-war US policy and the outbreak of the war).

Marshall's book is free and available here: http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpresseboo ... nd=ucpress



Could you list any different ones you have? Thanks.

[Herrbear]

In reading about Miri and Lutong, I think that Lutong might be combined with Miri in the game. It seems to be considered a suburb of Miri instead or Brunei.

[vettim89]

ORIGINAL: Herrbear

In reading about Miri and Lutong, I think that Lutong might be combined with Miri in the game. It seems to be considered a suburb of Miri instead or Brunei.

I think you are correct on that one.


As far as resources, I think Van Royen and Bowles' Atlas of the World's Resources seems to be the most important work. You catch many of the other authors quoting this book. That is why I am interested in seeing it. Another one I want to get my hands on is Robson's The Pacific Islands Handbook.

[JWE]

Here’s some fun stuff that might float your boat, vettim.
Refineries are a witch to model. They really do convert 90% of crude (actually closer to 99%) into something useful, but that’s in modern terms. In 1940 terms, it’s closer to 60%, and that depends a lot on just what kind of refinery it is and what grade (content) of crude is being refined.

In today’s terms, the distillate product is viewed on a scale of carbon chain length. It’s a function of boiling point in the fractionating column, and represents what one wishes to recover from a barrel of crude:
C1 – C9 lt condensates
C5 – C10 vehicle petrol
C10 – C16 paraffin/kerosene
C14 – C20 residual oilfuels
C20 – C50 lubricants
C20 – C70 fuel oil
>C70 heavy residuals
But crude is not quite so easily divisible. The longer chains may be cracked to smaller ones, and the smaller chains may be polymerized up. So one can adapt the process to get what one wishes, within limits.

But that was not the case in 1940. And particularly not the case in the third world regions where many of the oil fields were. Back in 1940, most of those refineries worked on an initial distillation process, so their output was either ‘crude’ or T-150 (product from 150C fractionation) plus residual output.

Just for fun, here’s the distillation composition of Arabian Light Benchmark (Abm), West Texas Intermediate (WTI), and Nigerian Bonny Light (NBL). Borneo Light Sweet is real close to NBL in content fraction. Also showing what a modern refinery can do with the C fractions for comparison. 80% now vs 40% then for gas, avgas, diesel, woof!!!

So, in modern terms, one gets a lot more useful stuff from a barrel, but does so by cracking and recombining. Life was much different 60 – 70 years ago. Cracking technology was known, but not largely applied because demand was different. Relatively modern (in our terms) refineries were only found in home industrial centers. Would submit that DEI refineries were fractionating/distillate facilities. So I believe a distillate model might be more appropriate for on-map refineries (except for US refineries).

The really interesting thing is the 15 to 50 fraction that obtains in NBL; 46% of content. No wonder the Japanese burned raw Borneo as warship fuel. I can see how it trashed the boilers, but can see just how they could make it kinda work.

This is cool poopie stuff.

[Pascal_slith]

Great info, JWE, thank you.

[vettim89]

ORIGINAL: JWE

Here’s some fun stuff that might float your boat, vettim.
Refineries are a witch to model. They really do convert 90% of crude (actually closer to 99%) into something useful, but that’s in modern terms. In 1940 terms, it’s closer to 60%, and that depends a lot on just what kind of refinery it is and what grade (content) of crude is being refined.

In today’s terms, the distillate product is viewed on a scale of carbon chain length. It’s a function of boiling point in the fractionating column, and represents what one wishes to recover from a barrel of crude:
C1 – C9 lt condensates
C5 – C10 vehicle petrol
C10 – C16 paraffin/kerosene
C14 – C20 residual oilfuels
C20 – C50 lubricants
C20 – C70 fuel oil
>C70 heavy residuals
But crude is not quite so easily divisible. The longer chains may be cracked to smaller ones, and the smaller chains may be polymerized up. So one can adapt the process to get what one wishes, within limits.

But that was not the case in 1940. And particularly not the case in the third world regions where many of the oil fields were. Back in 1940, most of those refineries worked on an initial distillation process, so their output was either ‘crude’ or T-150 (product from 150C fractionation) plus residual output.

Just for fun, here’s the distillation composition of Arabian Light Benchmark (Abm), West Texas Intermediate (WTI), and Nigerian Bonny Light (NBL). Borneo Light Sweet is real close to NBL in content fraction. Also showing what a modern refinery can do with the C fractions for comparison. 80% now vs 40% then for gas, avgas, diesel, woof!!!

So, in modern terms, one gets a lot more useful stuff from a barrel, but does so by cracking and recombining. Life was much different 60 – 70 years ago. Cracking technology was known, but not largely applied because demand was different. Relatively modern (in our terms) refineries were only found in home industrial centers. Would submit that DEI refineries were fractionating/distillate facilities. So I believe a distillate model might be more appropriate for on-map refineries (except for US refineries).

The really interesting thing is the 15 to 50 fraction that obtains in NBL; 46% of content. No wonder the Japanese burned raw Borneo as warship fuel. I can see how it trashed the boilers, but can see just how they could make it kinda work.

This is cool poopie stuff.

WOOF!!!

That certainly bears out the point that refineries are being far too generous with the fuel outflow in AE

Looking at the chart you can see both ends of the issue as far as feeding Borneo Sweet directly into boilers. Too much C70+ present which just gums up the works literally. But too much C10- and you might get a big Kablosion. I have read at least one author who claims that Ise's bisection was as much a product of the volatile fractions of the Borneo Sweet going up as it was the USN TT. Ever see video of a BLEVE? Quite impressive. There was one here in the 1960's when a gasoline tanker overturned - firefighters either didn't know about BLEVE or thought it wasn't possible. Four firefighters were killed and over 100 gawkers were injured.

BLEVE in Toledo

Now imagine that happening in a contained space

[Don Bowen]

Semi-related. I have a book with a reference to "the oil port of Sandakan". Was there any production or shipping facilities in that area?

[JWE]

Never seen a BLEVE, but can imagine. Just thinking back 100 years ago when nobody knew nothing about LNG/Naptha condensates. You don't get product from oil till you heat/distill it, but that's just what you do when you when you put it in a boiler, yeah?. So a large % of very low fraction volatiles might go off into ambient before consumption. After a while, Kablosion. They pressurized and actively vented up till the mid 20s, but the industry cooked off the volatiles in commercial fuels by the 1910s so it wasn't necessary afterwards. Somebody was either really, really stupid or really, really desperate to burn raw crude in an open system.

Hey, Yoshi ! ... the smoking lamp isn't lit ! ... ... aaiiieeeee

[JWE]

ORIGINAL: Don Bowen
Semi-related. I have a book with a reference to "the oil port of Sandakan". Was there any production or shipping facilities in that area?

No petro-oil or a pipeline, even today. It is a major palm and vegetable oil production center. Maybe it was like one of those Greek or Sicilian olive-oil ports. Just guessing.

[Don Bowen]

ORIGINAL: JWE

ORIGINAL: Don Bowen
Semi-related. I have a book with a reference to "the oil port of Sandakan". Was there any production or shipping facilities in that area?

No petro-oil or a pipeline, even today. It is a major palm and vegetable oil production center. Maybe it was like one of those Greek or Sicilian olive-oil ports. Just guessing.

Thanks.

But how could it possibly be wrong - it was in a book??

[JWE]

Beats heck out of me. Maybe back then oil was oil was oil. If you couldn’t burn it you fried fish or potatoes in it.

According to the Sabah Ports Authority (2010), the only oil port (petro oil) in the area is Sapangar Bay Port (6 single, 9 common-user pipelines, and getting bigger); on-map it would be somewhere between Jessleton and Kudat. Sandakan has a ton of liquid bulk storage, but it’s all for veggie oil. It has one ‘oil’ jetty, but that’s for fuel. Even Tawau is bigger. Go figure ..

Ciao. J

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: JWE

Here’s some fun stuff that might float your boat, vettim.
Refineries are a witch to model. They really do convert 90% of crude (actually closer to 99%) into something useful, but that’s in modern terms. In 1940 terms, it’s closer to 60%, and that depends a lot on just what kind of refinery it is and what grade (content) of crude is being refined.

Very interesting. Does this mean that, in game terms, a refinery should, say, have an input of 10 oil and an output of 6 fuel? If so it is an interesting concept, but if someone were to adjust the game in this way, they would have to take a very careful look at the oil and fuel production figures to make sure that the in-game economies don't get short-changed.

Andrew

[vettim89]

ORIGINAL: Andrew Brown

ORIGINAL: JWE

Here’s some fun stuff that might float your boat, vettim.
Refineries are a witch to model. They really do convert 90% of crude (actually closer to 99%) into something useful, but that’s in modern terms. In 1940 terms, it’s closer to 60%, and that depends a lot on just what kind of refinery it is and what grade (content) of crude is being refined.

Very interesting. Does this mean that, in game terms, a refinery should, say, have an input of 10 oil and an output of 6 fuel? If so it is an interesting concept, but if someone were to adjust the game in this way, they would have to take a very careful look at the oil and fuel production figures to make sure that the in-game economies don't get short-changed.

Andrew

I am not saying this should be changed but just to be accurate. Treespider posted a chart in the economic thread that showed Palembang's output. It broke down to about 70% supply and 30% fuel in AE terms. From the chart you can see the japanese never appraoched the refining efficiencies of the rpe-war Dutch/British owners. In what would be overly generous terms, it should be 10 Oil in 4 supply and 2 fuel out. YOIKS!!!!![X(][X(][X(]

This could be done but it would require rethinking of the entire input/output system. If you reduced HI fuel input to 1 or dare I say 0 (there, I said it) and increased the RP input to say 30, it may actaully be more balanced to RL. My thinking is that in 1941 very little industry was driven by fuel oil or natural gas instead being coal based. Considering Japan had ample supplies of coal in China, Korea, and Manchuko, it makes sense that there industry would be coal based. Andrew Brown just said coal is a resource not fuel.

My thinking is that if Palembang suddenly started only producing 2000 tons of fuel a day we are going to see a significant hurt being put on the IJN even if fuel is removed from the economic model. Pure conjecture but once I get more hard data in my hands I am going to put it into the system and see what it churns out

(Picture credit to Treespider from the Economic Thread)

[Local Yokel]

On the whole I am with you on the absence of any need for petroleum products in order to generate HI points. If I correctly understand the problems that confronted the Japanese, steel production was their biggest bottleneck, and the foremost constraint on this was an adequate supply of good coking coal. Home Island coal was not of the best quality for such use, and the Japanese really needed to ship in quantities of the good coking coal that was available in N. China.

However, raising the required resource input to 30 points (?per 2 HI points produced) strikes me as excessive, given that in Treespider's mod the ratio is 19 resource and 2 fuel in per 2 HI out. I can see a case for replacing the 2 fuel point requirement by an increase of up to, say, 4 resource points (i.e. 22 or 23 resource points in per 2 HI out, say), but an extra 11 resources? [X(] Surely too much!

Turning to the petroleum products side, I'm perplexed by the table. For starters, I would disregard the 1942 values, as they seem likely to reflect the damage sustained by the NEI oil infrastructure in the Centrifugal fighting. As I recall, the Dutch did a good job of laying waste to all the facilities at Balikpapan, for example.

When you look at the 1943 figures, I note a figure for production of crude that is 76% of the 1940 figure. I'm not surprised that the Japanese were unable to extract as much as the previous tenants. Nevertheless, they appear to have revived a substantial proportion of the wells' pre-war output. In the game, this is capable of being reflected by the arbitrary amount of damage the oil centres suffer when a base is captured - if all oil centres at Palembang are captured in a damaged condition, they cannot be repaired in full until mid 1944.

I also note that under Japanese control, the refineries in 1943 are turning out 117% of the 1940 AVGAS output. That suggests to me a deliberate decision on the part of the Japanese oil production authorities to increase AVGAS output, possibly at the expense of other oil products. This is also consistent with Pladjoe having (I think) been responsible for 78% of the overall Japanese AVGAS output.

I do not know whether there is a relationship between the 'Crude Oil, Refinery Throughput' figures and those of the Refinery Products breakdown. I note that in 1943 output of refinery products amounted to 47,869,000 barrels in total, whilst crude oil throughput at the refineries was the much lower figure of 23,398,000 barrels. Are these figures wholly unrelated to each other? If not, what is the relationship between them?

I also note that the 1943 output of 49,614,000 barrels of crude is 26,216,000 barrels more than refinery throughput of crude. This suggests to me that the excess, if not stockpiled, was shipped out of the NEI for processing elsewhere - Home Island refineries perhaps?

It seems to me that a better understanding of these figures may be needed before they can be used to suggest changes to Japanese petroleum production in the game.

[Buck Beach]

ORIGINAL: Local Yokel

On the whole I am with you on the absence of any need for petroleum products in order to generate HI points.

It is taking me awhile to get an understanding of this part of the econ model (most likely lack of concentration). If the petroleum requirements for HI is reduced to zero, would there still be HI outputs?