Statistics on Ostheer fuel consumption?

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John T
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Re: Statistics on Ostheer fuel consumption?

#16

Post by John T » 05 Aug 2019, 23:07

Hanny wrote:
05 Aug 2019, 08:00
Richard Anderson wrote:
24 Jul 2019, 22:12
In the second half of 1941 c. 812,900 avgas.
In 1942, they used c. 1.584 million metric tons of aviation gasoline and c. 2.089 million tons of all POL products (AVGAS, MOGAS, Diesel, lubricants, and fuel oil).

but in 1942, they used c. 4.6 to 5.3 million tons of all POL products, with c. 3.9 million (74%) of that consumed on the Ostfront.
So petrol (POL) consumption LW POL for 42 was 2.089 million -1.584 million =505000 tons. And half again of that for 41.
Petroleum production and its products are a very complex domain.
(and if there are someone with greater knowledge in this industry please advice)

Crude oil are broken down into a number of products, but these are most of the time not interchangeable.
In short and what was available in Germany during the war:
Instead of producing Aviation gasoline you can stop the process earlier and get motor gasoline.
Diesel, fuel oil and lubricants uses "other parts" of the crude oil, can't be used as motor gasoline.

So for 1942 LW AVGAS use could have been used as ordinary gasoline, just cheaper than avgas.
Given that the decision was made at the refinery.


Note -
During the war US industry did huge improvements in the processing, "cracking"
and today, given modern processes, energy, and additives,
the "conversion" between the different "parts" are much improved i an economical manner.

Cheers
/John

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Re: Statistics on Ostheer fuel consumption?

#17

Post by TheMarcksPlan » 05 Aug 2019, 23:52

John T wrote:So for 1942 LW AVGAS use could have been used as ordinary gasoline, just cheaper than avgas.
Given that the decision was made at the refinery.
Exactly.
And worse case you can use avgas in petrol trucks as well. It's more expensive but works just fine.
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Re: Statistics on Ostheer fuel consumption?

#18

Post by Richard Anderson » 06 Aug 2019, 07:46

John T wrote:
05 Aug 2019, 23:07
Petroleum production and its products are a very complex domain.
Indeed.
Crude oil are broken down into a number of products, but these are most of the time not interchangeable.
Exactly.
In short and what was available in Germany during the war:
Instead of producing Aviation gasoline you can stop the process earlier and get motor gasoline.
Diesel, fuel oil and lubricants uses "other parts" of the crude oil, can't be used as motor gasoline.

So for 1942 LW AVGAS use could have been used as ordinary gasoline, just cheaper than avgas.
Given that the decision was made at the refinery.
The problem was Germany did not get aviation gasoline from distilling crude oil at a refinery. Germany primarily got its aviation gasoline from the Bergius hydrogenation synthetic plants, which is why I earlier remarked it might be a better savings to not even build them. Except they were conceived in 1936 and approved on 27 May 1937, so the clock on the scenario needs to be reset earlier. However, in 1940 only about 19.8% of the Bergius process output was MOGAS, about 41% was AVGAS, 24.3% was diesel, and the rst was other distillates...fuel oil, liquefied gases, and lube oils (a minor fraction).

German MOGAS was largely produced from the available crude and the Fischer-Tropsch synthetic process. The problem is the Fischer-Tropsch operation was not producing meaningful tonnages until 1940 and the crude available was more suitable for heavier fuel oil and lubricating oils, just 9.3% in 1940 was refined as MOGAS.
During the war US industry did huge improvements in the processing, "cracking"
and today, given modern processes, energy, and additives,
the "conversion" between the different "parts" are much improved i an economical manner.
The major advantage the US industry had was WRT producing high octane leaded aviation gasoline because of its high capacity for tetra-ethyl lead production. Germany had just a single plant at the outset of the war, with a second near completion, captured a French plant, and built a third in Germany, but it wasn't in operation until 1945. Production was so limited and vulnerable that another plant was slated for underground construction, but never started.
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Re: Statistics on Ostheer fuel consumption?

#19

Post by TheMarcksPlan » 06 Aug 2019, 08:39

Richard Anderson wrote:
06 Aug 2019, 07:46
John T wrote:
05 Aug 2019, 23:07
Petroleum production and its products are a very complex domain.
Indeed.
Crude oil are broken down into a number of products, but these are most of the time not interchangeable.
Exactly.
In short and what was available in Germany during the war:
Instead of producing Aviation gasoline you can stop the process earlier and get motor gasoline.
Diesel, fuel oil and lubricants uses "other parts" of the crude oil, can't be used as motor gasoline.

So for 1942 LW AVGAS use could have been used as ordinary gasoline, just cheaper than avgas.
Given that the decision was made at the refinery.
The problem was Germany did not get aviation gasoline from distilling crude oil at a refinery. Germany primarily got its aviation gasoline from the Bergius hydrogenation synthetic plants, which is why I earlier remarked it might be a better savings to not even build them. Except they were conceived in 1936 and approved on 27 May 1937, so the clock on the scenario needs to be reset earlier. However, in 1940 only about 19.8% of the Bergius process output was MOGAS, about 41% was AVGAS, 24.3% was diesel, and the rst was other distillates...fuel oil, liquefied gases, and lube oils (a minor fraction).

German MOGAS was largely produced from the available crude and the Fischer-Tropsch synthetic process. The problem is the Fischer-Tropsch operation was not producing meaningful tonnages until 1940 and the crude available was more suitable for heavier fuel oil and lubricating oils, just 9.3% in 1940 was refined as MOGAS.
During the war US industry did huge improvements in the processing, "cracking"
and today, given modern processes, energy, and additives,
the "conversion" between the different "parts" are much improved i an economical manner.
The major advantage the US industry had was WRT producing high octane leaded aviation gasoline because of its high capacity for tetra-ethyl lead production. Germany had just a single plant at the outset of the war, with a second near completion, captured a French plant, and built a third in Germany, but it wasn't in operation until 1945. Production was so limited and vulnerable that another plant was slated for underground construction, but never started.
A wall of minutiae, none of which is responsive to the point that avgas works as well (at least) in petrol lorries as in planes.
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Re: Statistics on Ostheer fuel consumption?

#20

Post by John T » 06 Aug 2019, 12:06

Richard Anderson wrote:
06 Aug 2019, 07:46

The problem was Germany did not get aviation gasoline from distilling crude oil at a refinery. Germany primarily got its aviation gasoline from the Bergius hydrogenation synthetic plants, which is why I earlier remarked it might be a better savings to not even build them. Except they were conceived in 1936 and approved on 27 May 1937, so the clock on the scenario needs to be reset earlier. However, in 1940 only about 19.8% of the Bergius process output was MOGAS, about 41% was AVGAS, 24.3% was diesel, and the rst was other distillates...fuel oil, liquefied gases, and lube oils (a minor fraction).

German MOGAS was largely produced from the available crude and the Fischer-Tropsch synthetic process. The problem is the Fischer-Tropsch operation was not producing meaningful tonnages until 1940 and the crude available was more suitable for heavier fuel oil and lubricating oils, just 9.3% in 1940 was refined as MOGAS.
Interesting, but was really all hydrogenation plants built during the war approved on 27 May 1937 ?

Richard Anderson wrote:
06 Aug 2019, 07:46
During the war US industry did huge improvements in the processing, "cracking"
and today, given modern processes, energy, and additives,
the "conversion" between the different "parts" are much improved i an economical manner.
The major advantage the US industry had was WRT producing high octane leaded aviation gasoline because of its high capacity for tetra-ethyl lead production.
So you consider the production capacity of tetraethyl lead more important than Fluid Catalytic Cracking and other process improvements implemented during the war WRT todays methods of refinery?

It is always nice to read your great expertise

Cheers
/John

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Re: Statistics on Ostheer fuel consumption?

#21

Post by Richard Anderson » 06 Aug 2019, 16:45

John T wrote:
06 Aug 2019, 12:06
Interesting, but was really all hydrogenation plants built during the war approved on 27 May 1937 ?
No, but then I never said that was the case. IG Farben's Leuna plant began operations in 1927 and by 1939 was producing about 480,000 MT of distillates. It was followed by small plants at Böhlen, Magdeburg, and Zeitz begun in 1935-1936 and operating by 1937. The 27 May 1937 program added expansions at Böhlen (II and III) and Zeitz (II), and new plants at Scholven, Gelsenberg, Bottrop-Welheim, Poelitz, Lützkendorf, Wesseling, Ludwigshafen-Oppau, and Moosbierbaum. The new plants authorized in 1937 were planned for operations in 1938. However, of those, only Scholven was completed on time and the rest were mostly from one to nine months late. Lützkendorf was completed about 13 months late, Böhlen III, scheduled to open December 1939, was operational in November 1940, Zeitz II, scheduled for May 1940, was operational August 1941.

Blechhammer, Heydebreck, and Auschwitz were added during the war.
So you consider the production capacity of tetraethyl lead more important than Fluid Catalytic Cracking and other process improvements implemented during the war WRT todays methods of refinery?
Er, no, I never said that either. For wartime production of AVGAS via crude refinery and the addition of terta-ethyl lead and other chemicals, the US had a major lead over all other nations, supplying major quantities of 100 and 130 octane AVGAS and tetra-ethyl lead to the UK and the SU. Its crude refinery capacity was also much larger. Germany was forced to rely on a much smaller capacity for producing tetra-ethyl lead, which acted as one limiter to AVGAS production (the other was the characteristics of the domestic and Romanian crude). That was why they relied mostly on the hydrogenation plants for AVGAS since by adjusting the process they could generate various quality distillate.

And, again, I was being somewhat facetious when I recommended they simply not build the plants since with a greatly reduced Luftwaffe they really don't need such expensive AVGAS. The hydrogenation process could have been used to produce more MOGAS than AVGAS if they desired to produce MOGAS at costs four to five times the cost of that produced from natural petroleum and if they decided the Luftwaffe wasn't really a necessary component of their operations.
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Re: Statistics on Ostheer fuel consumption?

#22

Post by TheMarcksPlan » 17 Aug 2019, 02:34

Came across figures for 19th PzDiv's POL consumption in liters from June 16 to October 31: 4,222,680 gasoline, 1,013,110 diesel, 200,060 oil. From its war diary as cited by Stahel in Battle of Moscow, pg. 103.

Using 7.5 lbs/gal(imp) density, that's ~4,100 tons.
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Re: Statistics on Ostheer fuel consumption?

#23

Post by TheMarcksPlan » 25 Jan 2020, 03:46

Re-upping this to share USSB figures for German fuel consumption:

Image
Image
Image

Mogas consumption averaged ~180k tons during the active Barbarossa campaign.
It's interesting to see the June 41 peak at ~260k tons - is that for schlepping things to the border pre-Barbarossa or is the chart maybe based on disbursement to individual units rather than time of actual use? Seems like it would be hard to track actual use rather than disbursement, so probably the chart is a somewhat-lagged indicator of actual use. That would suggest Ostheer burned the most fuel during July, which would make more sense.

It's also interesting that civil mogas consumption was ~70k/mo during Summer '41 but ~50k/mo by summer '43. Obviously the Germans tightened their belts a bit as the war progressed. Contrary to assertions in this thread, the civilian economy probably could have surrendered more fuel to the Heer than OTL. Civil diesel use also declined by 43 and German synth plants had a lot of flexibility to produce different types of POL.

Avgas averaged ~120k tons/mo during Barbarossa.

Most diesel was used in the civilian economy. I assume nearly all military diesel went to the KM. Were there any diesel Heer vehicles? Can't think of any...
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Re: Statistics on Ostheer fuel consumption?

#24

Post by historygeek2021 » 29 Jul 2021, 23:48

TheMarcksPlan wrote:
25 Jan 2020, 03:46
Re-upping this to share USSB figures for German fuel consumption:

Image
Image
Image
What specific book is this from? What pages? I can't find it in the online version:

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id= ... &skin=2021

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Re: Statistics on Ostheer fuel consumption?

#25

Post by TheMarcksPlan » 30 Jul 2021, 01:01

historygeek2021 wrote:
29 Jul 2021, 23:48

What specific book is this from? What pages? I can't find it in the online version:

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id= ... &skin=2021
I'm not certain but pretty sure it's from the Oil Division report. I also recall seeing the data in tabular form, perhaps on this forum.

Geez what a s-show this thread was.
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Re: Statistics on Ostheer fuel consumption?

#26

Post by Richard Anderson » 30 Jul 2021, 01:27

historygeek2021 wrote:
29 Jul 2021, 23:48
What specific book is this from? What pages? I can't find it in the online version:

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id= ... &skin=2021
Because it is not from that report. It's from https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id= ... &skin=2021, pp. 22-25.
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Re: Statistics on Ostheer fuel consumption?

#27

Post by historygeek2021 » 30 Jul 2021, 02:01

TheMarcksPlan wrote:
30 Jul 2021, 01:01
I also recall seeing the data in tabular form, perhaps on this forum.
USSBS has it annually but not monthly:
WW2 Oil Germany consumptoin.png

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Re: Statistics on Ostheer fuel consumption?

#28

Post by historygeek2021 » 30 Jul 2021, 03:58

Richard Anderson wrote:
30 Jul 2021, 01:27
historygeek2021 wrote:
29 Jul 2021, 23:48
What specific book is this from? What pages? I can't find it in the online version:

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id= ... &skin=2021
Because it is not from that report. It's from https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id= ... &skin=2021, pp. 22-25.
Thanks!

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