Any Petroleum Engineers here? Gotta question

[Newf Limo]

Diesel fuel -Vs- Off Road Diesel Vs-#2 Home Heating Oil (HHO).



If you search the net, you find all kinds of answers, but not by anyone that is actually involved with the engineering of the products. Hence, if you don't like the answers, go to the next website.



So, with 37,000 members here, somebody must be a petroleum engineer or scientist or similar that can clear this up.



First, a simple one. I continually see on forums, and even in the petroleum transporting and sales business, people referring to Diesel and K1 and #2HHO as distillates. Am I crazy or are these products not the left overs of distillation? I always thought of Gasoline and similar products to be the "distillates" and the heavier stuff to be "non-distillates".



That was the simple one (I think).



Time and time again, even by people in the the business, imply that there is no difference between #2 HHO, Off Road Diesel, and on road (automotive) diesel, other than the red dye for the purpose of taxes. That makes me ask a few questions.



Why have a different name for the same product, #2HHO, and Off Road Diesel? Neither are taxed like On Road Diesel. Both are red dyed. I know that when ordering Off Road Diesel for your construction equipment, you may actually get #2 HHO, if that is what the driver is in the process of delivering at that time. Why not just make it all the same name. Untaxed Diesel or Red Diesel or something.



Does #2 HHO have the same lubricity properties as Off Road Diesel? On Road Diesel? Does Off Road Diesel have the same additives as on Road, with the exception of the dye?



Here is the real annoying one. . .



I run almost exclusively Irving Diesel in my truck and my John Deere compact tractor. When I have run Off Road in my tractor, it seems to have less power. Could just be in my head. At some petrol stations, (independants) they fill their Diesel tank with whichever is the cheapest on road diesel available at the rack at that moment. Could be Mobil, Citgo, Irving, Valero etc. Personally, I have tried other brands and have noted a significant variation in fuel mileage. It doesn't take long to show up either, especially with the MPG digital display.



When I have discussed this with people that sell or deliver the fuel, they say it is all the same. As if it all comes from one big tank, and all you are getting by the name brand is their formulation of additive.



Somehow, I don't see Irving as being willing to have their Diesel Fuel brought down from Canada, just to be splashed into a 2 million gallon tank half full of some Venezuelan petro companies product. Regardless of the additives. So what is the answer to that? Is it all just combined and then when the tanker driver selects Irving Arctic Diesel, the additive machine squirts in the additive as the product is loaded? You may actually be getting a blend of Valero, Motiva, Mobil, Irving, but with an irving proprietary additive?



Thanks for the help.



Dennis

 

[Road Dog]

I'm not a petroleum engineer but it's all about the refineries. In my neighbourhood (near Vancouver, BC) there's one -- Chevron's Burnaby Refinery (also near Vancouver). It has two pipelines feeding it (one from Alberta and one from Northern BC). I assume all the Diesel for all the different fuel stations comes from there. The next refinery is in Prince George BC 500 miles away.

 

[BIGNASTY]

Petro

I was a petroleum relocating engineer for 27 years AKA ( Truck Driver) :-laf In So Calif where I drove unless you picked it up at the refinery you had no idea who's fuel was who's. When I went to the satellite loading racks it was all sent in one pipe. After a bunch of years you could smell and see a difference (color) but to say that it was this or that I couldn't I just took about 1150 loads a year to the correct station and dropped the product in the correct hole. Some companies had satellite racks but not many so they had A pipeline to that rack. Kinder Morgan handled most of the pipeline at least in So Calif. Didn't know that they put home heating oil to use in trucks or equipment that I dont think would happen in Calif all the Enviro nuts





QUOTE the tanker driver selects Irving Arctic Diesel, the additive machine squirts in the additive as the product is loaded? You may actually be getting a blend of Valero, Motiva, Mobil, Irving, but with an irving proprietary additive? THAT IS HOW IT WAS DONE AT NON BRANDED LOADING RACKS IN SO CALIF.

 

[dlmartin]

My supplier tells me the only difference between the highway diesel fuel he delivers to me and HHO and tractor diesel is the red dye he puts in to show no road tax, come from same tank.

 

[BIGNASTY]

My supplier tells me the only difference between the highway diesel fuel he delivers to me and HHO and tractor diesel is the red dye he puts in to show no road tax, come from same tank.

Didnt know that as I have never used Home Heating Oil for heat. I do agree that the dye is the difference in the diesel tax or no tax.

 

[Newf Limo]

When drove transports for DownEast Energy, I would load gasoline and diesel fuels at a variety of terminals. Gulf, Motiva (Citgo), Sprague, and Mobil. If i were taking petro to branded stations, of which we only did Gulf and Mobil, we would go to their terminals and get their products, with one exception, Gulf doesn't have diesel.



With Gulf, being a branded station, I would then have to go to Mobil and depending on the market prices, load Mobil PLUS LSD, or Irving Clean Diesel (winter blend was Irving Arctic Diesel). Mobil did have a regular LSD product but we weren't allowed to use it. It had to be the PLUS or high end products. So, definately not Citgo!



If we were loading for a Mom and Pop unbranded station, it was the cheapest of all the stuff available. Usually Citgo Products, and Citgo Diesel. I have run the Citgo in my Ram and had a very quick and marked drop in fuel mileage. So there is a difference. I also know that these all aren't the same diesel base, because I see the ships come in from different countries and go to different terminals.



There must be a difference, first of all, in the crude base they are using, because oil out of Saudi Arabia, Venezuela or the oil sands of Canada can't be exactly the same. The products are cracked off not distilled, and there has to be different qualities in practice for that process as well. Someone mentioned the color of the fuel. Absolutely! Irving Diesel looks almost like the color of a green chemlight once it has run out of reaction. Citgo looks. . . sort of. . . grayish.



So, if there can be significant variations in the on-road LSD, that is meant to be used in vehicles that are less tollerant of quality issues, then how much science, care and effort could be going into Home Heating Oil that is going to be pushed through a big fat nozzle and burned, not for compression, but just a ball of fire? I think there must be more to it than the dye.



Irving Diesel and Irving Heating oil may be the same in the tank as a base #2 oil, but there is a tank of additives somwhere along the line that is injecting their proprietary secret sauce that us used to protect you engine and injection pump, increase the burnability and reduce the chance of gelling. I think you must get a reduced amount of it in Off Road Diesel, since the tollerance in an Excavator Engine is much greater than what it would be in a Cummins Ram or Jetta Diesel. Running Heating Oil may "work" in your off road equipment, but if you order Off Road, I should think that you should be getting it. Not getting Heating Oil. If you are taking it home to your tractor, (HHO) you should think about using a good additive. Sure would like to hear from an engineer or a Terminal manager or something though.



I also haven't heard of anyone having the ability to dye it themselves. In our area, you make the selection at the terminal. Otherwise, you will have been charged for taxable diesel when it was delivered, and then dye it yourself and resell it as non taxed. That is probably how they do it here though. Besides, it isn't that easy to mix, since the dye is a powder. What a PIA that would be!

 

[Batphreak]

I'm not a petroleum engineer, but I am a mechanical engineer. For your first question there the answer is that all those products are distillates. Distilling is a column and to get one of the top products in the column you will have to produce the ones below it as well. This article should help explain it, also has a nice picture to help with the distillation column.

In The Pipe: INDUSTRY LEADERS: Unlocking the Power of Crude Oil

 

[mwilson]

Newf,

Before I went to work at Freightliner I spent 6 months pulling tanks for RST, which is a division of Irving Oil.

We hauled caustic soda, various acids, bleach and hydrogen peroxide.



We also hauled Bunker C (#6 oil), asphalt and some home heating oil.



I loaded at the Irving Terminal in Searsport and after watching the product being unloaded from ships at Mack Point which Sprauge Energy owns I came to the conclusion that there are different additive packages or secret sauce (I like that description BTW) for the raw product depending on it's final destination.



I have noticed and my furnace technician agrees that the last couple of years has brought a marked decrease in the quality of #2 heating oil, it appears to have a lot of asphaltine in it. I only burn 500 gallons a year but my nozzle and filter this year were just black and crappy. He says that it is the worst quality he has seen in his many years of service. Folks that burn 1000 to 2000 gallons a year are having to clean the furnaces halfway through the winter.



The only thing I never did figure out was how the Irving Arctic Blend was handled, it may come directly from the Irving Refinery in St. John, New Brunswick.

That fuel is the best, hands down.



There must be a difference now between Diesel and #2 heating fuel, a friend of mine got tired of the dirty #2 and switched to Off-Road Diesel for his house, he has a transfer tank on his pick-up so he can pump it right in. His filter and nozzle now stay clean.



Mike.

 

[Newf Limo]

Thanks Batphreak. I kind of remember my BOLs from the Mobil terminal being labeled Distillates for Gasoline and the #2, K1 and LSD were labeled Non-Distillates, but that was several years ago, and my memory isn't what it used to be. It would seem that any products that weren't heated to a gas form, collected off the top and cooled (condensed ) to a liquid, would not be a distillate itself, but a by-product of the process. I haven't done fractional distillation since High School science and that was over 30 yeras ago. Maybe a more recent tanker yanker can clear this up.



Mike, you bring up a real good point. Since I am delivering heating oil this winter, I remember a couple months ago, delivering "Off-road" Diesel to a customer for heating oil instead of #2HHO, at his request and he paid the extra $$. He is a Rep for Irving and doesn't want to burn Heating Oil. Well that should tell us something! Thanks for the reminder.

 

[BIGNASTY]

Dye

QUOTE

. Besides, it isn't that easy to mix, since the dye is a powder. What a PIA that would be!



It was a PITA we use to have to climb up on the trucks and drop in a bag of dye. Until some moron fell off the truck and AQMD said that opening up the lids was releasing fumes into the air. Then they got more mechanized and injected into the loading process.

 

[Newf Limo]

Bummer. So you dump a bag in and then load the truck. Makes sense. Still a PIA. I prefer mine pre-colored.

 

[BIGNASTY]

Bummer. So you dump a bag in and then load the truck. Makes sense. Still a PIA. I prefer mine pre-colored.

Not for a very long time that was when I first started in Gas Hauling and OSHA stoped that as soon as that guy fell off the truck.

 

[AABEN]

Your off road fuel has a dye in it so they can tell if it is off road fuel! Off road fuel has a different TAX If you are caught with off road fuel it is a very large fine 10. 000 up in most cases. Kerosene also does not have road TAX on it and it has less lubericant in it so this is a no no for are trucks.

 

[BIGNASTY]

?

NewfLimo

Quote collected off the top and cooled (condensed ) to a liquid, would not be a distillate itself,



Don't know if this is going to be the answer that your looking for. But in the product delivery at station in CA we had to hook up 2 hose's 1 for Vapor Recovery and the other for product. The Vapor hose was used in CA way before most of the other states (CA has to be the front runner in going GREEN) It was said to collect the vapor from the tank in the ground as the fuel was being dropped in the tank. Then back at the loading rack we would hook up a Vapor recovery hose and product loading head and reload the truck. I asked one time how much they got when the vapor condensed back to liquid in the vapor recovery unit but I cant remember how much it was. Seems like it wasn't the product recovery that was the concern but the vapor going into the atmosphere and burning the O zone was more of a problem. Funny side note we didnt have to hook up the Vapor hose when dropping Diesel just gas a different kind of fume I guess.

 

[rscurtis]

Gasoline is evaporating at normal ambient temperatures, diesel fuel does not. Open a gas container and place it against a distant background, you can see the vapors distort the background just like heat waves. Long Island has the vapor recovery system on the fuel pumps also.

 

[BIGNASTY]

Gasoline is evaporating at normal ambient temperatures, diesel fuel does not. Open a gas container and place it against a distant background, you can see the vapors distort the background just like heat waves. Long Island has the vapor recovery system on the fuel pumps also.

I wasn't talking about the fuel pumps it was when we were dropping fuel in the ground tanks that we had to have Vapor recovery. At the pumps has been the standard for a long time but people still smoke and pump gas. I use to tell them right now would not be a good time to smoke and fill your car while i'm dropping fuel in the tank it puts extra pressure in the system. Some would put it out others would say something ugly I just asked them when you catch fire just remember one thing RUN AWAY FROM THE TRUCK PLEASE :-laf

 

[The patriot]

1 I'm not an engineer.

2 I'm no longer employed in this (petro-chemical) field. My info may be a little dated. "low sulfur" blends were just coming out when I left the field.



When we got deliveries the drivers told me the only difference in #2 diesel, #2 heating oil and home heating oil was the dye that got metered into the load dictating if it's taxed or now.



#2 diesel, #2 heating oil and HHO= all the same basic fuel.

 

[mwilson]

1 I'm not an engineer.

2 I'm no longer employed in this (petro-chemical) field. My info may be a little dated. "low sulfur" blends were just coming out when I left the field.



When we got deliveries the drivers told me the only difference in #2 diesel, #2 heating oil and home heating oil was the dye that got metered into the load dictating if it's taxed or now.



#2 diesel, #2 heating oil and HHO= all the same basic fuel.

Just speculating, but I think the HHO and Off-Road possibly being different is a fairly recent event.

I know the last two years up here the HHO just sucks for lack of a better word..... and it never used to.



Mike.

 

[The patriot]

Mike,

I cant dispute that. I've been out of the field since 04.

Also I'm sure theyre constantly changing things due to regulation.



Also, I notice very few pumps around here list the cetane rating. And those that do, list a lower cetane than they used to.

Hess is the only retailer who lists cetane in NJ that I'm aware of.

 

[RustyJC]

Much of the reason that HHO burns dirtier is that HHO can still have 3000 ppm sulfur. Diesel fuels were, of course, 500 ppm sulfur until the advent of ULSD highway diesel at 15 ppm or below sulfur.



There are moves afoot to regulate lower sulfur contents for HHO.



Rusty