Paper: Energy Conservation In lease Crude Oil Processing

Very little emphasis has been placed on conservation in lease crude oil processing to date. This subject was not a practical consideration until about a decade ago when the value of the energy products began to rise. Since new-oil price decontrols instituted ten years ago, crude oil has risen in value one thousand percent, and natural gas as high as 500,000 percent. This, of course, has whetted our economic appetite to produce and sell more. But even today very little consideration is given to the economics of conserving what we already have. Conservation is lack-luster when compared to the excitement of wildcatting. And yet, conservation is a sure thing. As little as 5% conservation across-the-board could reduce our import oil requirements by over 10% without the speculative gamble or huge capital costs of wildcatting. A grass roots approach to conservation is conservation in the processing of lease crude oil.