From the Ground to the Tank, How Is Diesel Made?

From the ground to the tank, how is diesel made?

To grasp a better understanding of how diesel fuel makes its way in the tanks of everyday trucks, one should begin by better understanding as to where diesel actually comes from. Petroleum, or crude oil, is also known as fossil fuel. This means that organisms dating back to primordial times came to be buried and preserved in the earth. Those along with the application of heat, pressure and time, several changes occurred allowing the fossils to become petroleum (crude oil).

Crude oil needs to go through a refining process in order for it to become applicable to diesel powered machinery. Crude oil contains many different hydrocarbon compounds each with different characteristics which can be used in various applications. In order to obtain the portion of hydrocarbon used for diesel, the crude oil must first be heated. Once heated the each hydrocarbons can reach its individual boiling point and then be separated by their vaporization temperature. Each unique hydrocarbon is known as fraction. After the different vapors are separated and collected, they are then condensed to form a liquid. Following the condensation process of each fraction, including the diesel fraction we need, each of the fractions is then chemically processed and treated making it ready for marketable use such as for fuel use in trucks, trains, buses, and other heavy machinery. This refining process is called fractional distillation.

Why is the cost of diesel fuel so high? Today, there are several factors affecting that cost. The first thing to consider is the cost to produce and deliver diesel fuel. The factors dictating this is the cost of crude oil, refining, marketing and distribution. There are also the costs and profits, or sometimes losses, of refiners, marketers, distributors, etc. Consideration to whether or not these companies involved are having financial concerns, whether new environmental requirements will force new costly processing methods to be implemented, or any other number of factors, any of which will reflect on the retail price of diesel fuel you see at the pump. With international demand for diesel fuel and continued pressure on our global refining capacity it’s almost certain that the cost of fuel will continue to rise.