How many gallons of gas are produced from a 55 gallon drum of crude oil?

Question

How many gallons of gas are produced from a 55 gallon drum of crude oil?

Answer 1

Crude oil unit of measure is barrel and there are 42 gallons in a barrel...Today, approximately 21 gallons of gasoline can be refined from a barrel of crude oil.

The cost of gasoline breaks down as follows: $0.58 of each dollar for gas is for the price of crude oil, 0.17 for refining, 0.10 for retailing and 0.15 for taxes

Answer 2

good question? 55 gallons?

Answer 3

On average, you get about 20 gallons of gasoline from each 42 gallon barrel of crude oil.  Crude barrels are 42 gallons, not 55.  

Here is a great website from the Energy Information Administration of the Department of Energy on what we get from a barrel of crude.  It's a "kid's page", but it's very informative:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/kids/energyfacts/...

Answer 4

Crude oil is a natural product that is a mix of hydrocarbons.  Alkanes from Pentane (C5H12) to Octane (C8H18) are extracted via fractional distillation to make gasoline.  How much of the 55 gallons are alkanes in this range will vary depending on where the crude oil comes from.  You may have heard the terms light and heavy applied to crude oil.  So there is no simple answer, but all of the 55 gallons is used in one way or another, as gas, diesel, kerosine etc.

Further information is available at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crude_oil