Crude Oil Purchase by the general public ???

[buickanddeere]

Just out of curiosity. Is there any particular restriction or regulations? If "Joe Average" wanted to purchase a a couple of totes of light sweet crude oil in the US or Canada ? For off road use of course. Figuring the purchaser would know enough to stay up wind of the H2S fumes.

 

[jeff9366]

What use would you have for unrefined crude?

At least in Florida you can purchase all the road-tax-free Off-road Diesel you desire.


You can buy 'paper' crude through several Exchange Traded Funds.

The United States Oil Fund, LP ("USO") is a domestic exchange traded security designed to track the movements of light, sweet crude oil ("West Texas Intermediate").

LINK: Fund Details - United States Oil Fund

 

[buickanddeere]

Some collectors have those old "Oil Field" engines that ran on crude oil. It would be interesting to try the real stuff.

 

[Egon]

Bunker C.

Were those old engines running on condensate or casing gas?

 

[davesl708]

Crude oil rarely see the light of day. Mostly piped from the field to storage or direct to refinery. Small wells and remote wells use gun barrels to store oil. I suppose if you find an independent driller they may take the time to get you some.

It is highly volatile so handle it like gasoline. A lot of crud can be in it as well as some saltwater. Not sure I would want to burn it in an engine without lots of filtering.

 

[stuckmotor]

My neighbor said they used to crude it in his dad's JD H. If I remember correctly, he said they cranked the tractor in the spring and didn't shut it off till spring plowing was done. Then they rebuilt the engine because dirt in the crude had worn it out.

 

[Gary Fowler]

I have doubts that anyone could use straight Crude oil in any engine except perhaps a military engine that is designed to run on just about any hydrocarbon fuel.

Lots of common folks during and right after WWII would "borrow" the casing gas or drip gas as it was called", but the octane was so high that to avoid engine damage, it had to be cut with regular gasoline. You could burn up an engine fast if you didn't mix it right. There was no "crud" in it since it was all condensate that leaked from valve packing. It was not Crude Oil in any fashion.

An uncle brought my Dad a 55 gallon drum of pure Crude Oil once (don't know where he got it from) but it was useless for anything other than a rust preventative. It was smelly and thick but it was an excellent coating on any metal that you didn't want to rust. It was also nearly impossible to get off of anything it was applied to. We may have used 10 gallons of it for the 20 years or so that it sat at our fueling station. I don't know what eventually happened to that barrel of crude oil, likely it was poured on a brush pile and burned.

 

[buickanddeere]

There are forums where some folk gather up used oil from garages and restaurants . They let the stuff settle for a while . Drain the water and mud off the bottom. Warm the "oil" up some and run it through various mesh sizes of filter socks. Then they use a centrifuge to clean the oil down to a micron or two. the "oil" is used in those old pre WWII Lister or Petter Diesel engines .
Medium or heavy crude would be a lost cause. Light or synthetic light crude could work?
I looked in a oil storage tank of an Ontario gas/oil well once upon a time .. The "crude" looked and smelled like crankcase oil from an all fuel tractor that had been burning #2 diesel.
The "drip gas" probably had a very low octane similar to white gas or Coleman lantern fuel. It would knock an 8 to 1 compression engine to pieces unless boosted by mixing with leaded gasoline .

 

[LD1]

Yep, gary you got the octane thing backwards.

Octane is RESISTANCE to detonation. the higher the number, the harder to ignite. Drip gas is very low octane (MORE EXPLOSIVE). Octane boosters, (like lead way back when) are used to make the combustion/explosion more controllable. NOT more powerful or more explosive.

Higher compression makes more power. But like any gas thats compressed, it heats up. low octane can only handle so much before it pre-ignites BEFORE the spark plug tells it to. THAT is detonation/knock that destroys and engine.

 

[Egon]

Drip gas = Plus minus c5 pentane + water usually. Make up varies with how long it's been sitting and vapouring off.

If'n light crude is wanted check with field tanker truck fellows that work in the oil field. Fellows that empty tanks, haul crude for work over etc. Other than that your into a closed transportation system that is usually only accessible at plant type locations where an individual don't get access.

Or; couple of pipe wrenches, a nipple or two, hose and change of clothes and do an evening visit right to the well head.