What percentage of crude oil becomes gasoline? (2023)

How much crude oil makes a gallon of gasoline?

Refineries in the United States produce about 19 to 20 gallons of motor vehicle gasoline for every 42-gallon barrel of crude oil.

Not all crude oil is the same

Refineries can produce high-value products such as gasoline, diesel fuel, and jet fuel from light crude oil with simple distillation. When refineries use simple distillation on denser (heavier) crude oils (with lower API gravity), they produce low-value products.

One barrel of crude oil produces up to 42.5 gallons of oil products. Gasoline is the most produced oil product, accounting for 19.5 gallons, followed by diesel and heating oil. The volume of one barrel of crude oil is 42 gallons.

Analysts cited by NPR project that if oil hits $200, the retail price of gas would average $5.84 in the US.

The primary factors impacting gasoline prices are global crude oil cost (61%), refining costs (14%), distribution and marketing costs (11%) and federal & state taxes (14%), which are generally reflected in the wholesale costs that gasoline retailers pay to distributors.

Most of the crude oil produced in the United States is refined in U.S. refineries along with imported crude oil to make petroleum products.

Crude oil is a highly variable mixture of heavy and light hydrocarbons that need to be separated in a refinery to turn them into usable products. For these different reasons it is impossible to develop a universal boiler or engine capable of running on all crude oils.

While raw crude oil is not used directly in our vehicles, the oil that is used to lubricate engines is made from refined crude oil. In addition, gasoline and diesel fuel are also extracted from crude oil.

Soon after America's first commercial oil well of 1859, a small group met in northwestern Pennsylvania and decided a 42-gallon barrel was best for transporting their oil. When filled with oil instead of fish or other commodities, a 42-gallon “tierce” weighed 300 pounds.

Which 2 countries use the most oil?

A barrel of crude oil is only 42 gallons, not 55 gallons. So to answer your question: On average a barrel of WTI crude oil produces approximately 20 gallons of gas.

And yet that same report reveals that the U.S. imported 7.86 million barrels of oil per day last year. That happens because of a combination of economics and chemistry. The economics are simple: overseas oil, even after shipping costs, is often cheaper than domestically-produced crude.

The reason that U.S. oil companies haven't increased production is simple: They decided to use their billions in profits to pay dividends to their CEOs and wealthy shareholders and simply haven't chosen to invest in new oil production.

Total petroleum net exports were about 0.06 million b/d in 2021, and total petroleum net exports in 2020 were 0.63 million b/d. Also in 2021, the United States produced² about 18.77 million b/d of petroleum and consumed³ about 19.89 million b/d.

American drivers had it rough back in 1981. The average price of gasoline spiked to $1.353 a gallon that year — up from $1.221 in 1980 and more than double the price just three years earlier.

$150 oil would translate to $5 gas

Veteran energy analyst Tom Kloza, president of the Oil Price Information Service, said $150 oil would roughly translate to $5-a-gallon gasoline nationally.

Live interactive chart of West Texas Intermediate (WTI or NYMEX) crude oil prices per barrel. The current price of WTI crude oil as of November 30, 2022 is 79.82 per barrel.

How much does it cost to produce 1 gallon of gasoline?

How much does it cost to refine gasoline? The cost to refine gasoline varies between 40 cents and 70 cents per gallon, depending on various factors.

The Keystone Pipeline System plays a key role in delivering Canadian and US crude oil supplies to markets around North America. It stretches 4,324 km (2,687 miles) from Alberta to refineries in Illinois, Oklahoma and the US Gulf Coast.

The top five source countries of U.S. gross petroleum imports in 2021 were Canada, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Colombia. Note: Ranking in the table is based on gross imports by country of origin. Net import volumes in the table may not equal gross imports minus exports because of independent rounding of data.

Crude oil is produced in 32 U.S. states and in U.S. coastal waters. In 2021, about 71% of total U.S. crude oil production came from five states. In 2021, about 15.2% of U.S. crude oil was produced from wells located offshore in the federally administered waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

Agriculture could continue on a smaller scale, following the old ways and with a more seasonally based, local range of foodstuffs. Converting to living without oil for maintaining basic everyday life would require at least 10-20 years, Johansen estimates.