Show BUREAU OF MINES MAKING PETROLEUM investigations A field investigation of pumping equipment used in the mid continent field is being made by the bureau of mines work is in progress at the pittsburgh pa experiment station on the relation of sulphur saturates unsaturated un and gum forming compounds to suitability for motor fuel A survey of the mexia oil field in texas will be begun shortly by the dallas office of the bureau of mines it is expected to define the strata in the proven area and to outline the best methods of production and conservation for this particular field tests at the bartlesville Bart lesville station on low pressure gas burners used in oil field boilers have been completed eleven low pressure burners were tested in this investigation 6 arrangements range ments have been made to obtain additional field data on steam consumption under different drilling operations at the petroleum experiment station at bartlesville Bart lesville okla of the bureau of mines the field investigation on losses of crude oil by evaporation from lease storage tanks has been completed in one producing district a thorough study of evaporation losses was made first under ordinary storage conditions and later with ith the lease storage tanks equipped with gas tight roofs the saving due to the installation stal lation of new up to date equipment amounted to from two to four barrels of oil per day for each tank covered an investigation has been started to determine the loss of crude oil through evaporation at pipeline measuring stations and arrangements have been made for a series of tests on a trunk pipeline from the cushing and glenn pool fields to a station at powderly Powder lv texas at the boulder colo field office of the bureau of mines the cooperative oil shale laboratory has been enlarged and much new equipment has been added preparatory to more extensive work on colorado additions to the staff at the laboratory include douglas A fell a native of new south wales whose father is the owner of the only y producing oil shale company in australia important nt changes have been made in the temperature measuring apparatus and in the drive mechanism of the horizontal retort at this station A new location of pyrometers in the retort proper and the retort furnace is expected to indicate more accurately the temperature of the shale in the retort and also make possible more definite control of ret conditions during the past two years several attempts have been made to classify oil by chemical determinations of various sorts but these have not been successful it has been suggested that the quality of oil to be obtained from a given oil shale will be most influenced by the C H 0 ratio tio in the organic matter of the shale work is now under way ay seeking to determine this ratio for several represents sive ve the plan of work involves 1 the separation of the organic from the inorganic of the 2 the elementary combustion analysis of the recovered organic matter 3 the retorting of a sample of the same shale in the assay retorts and 4 a distillation analysis and chemical examination of the oils produced by the assay retorts this work is now well under way vay although at the start considerable difficulty was experienced in making a clean separation between the organic and inorganic z parts of the shale A method for the separation has been developed however that appears to be quite satisfactory experiments in refining the oils produced from colorado oil have been started various methods of procedure will be tried and the concentration of the refining reagents changed until the most satisfactory results have been obtained for the purpose of comparing different oil it has been tentatively agreed that the most satisfactory oil is that which yields the highest percentage of crude naptha containing the lowest percentage of unsaturated hydrocarbons |