2659.            PETTY, M.  Scanning Washington’s Oil Horizon.  Petrol. Eng., vol. 18, No. 12, 1947, p. 14.

Military leaders apparently have become convinced that development of a synthetic fuel industry in the United States, capable of producing 1,000,000 bbl. per day of synthetic oil, is the only sure way of attaining the self-sufficiency required by national defense.  As the result of recent conferences between officials of the Interior Department and of the Army and Navy, a plant-construction program, costing several hundred million dollars, may be submitted at the next session of Congress.  The program probably will call for building 4 synthetic plants, each with a capacity of 25,000-30,000 bbl. per day to make liquid fuels by retorting oil shale, by hydrogenation of coal, and by the Fischer-Tropsch process using natural gas and coal.  Preliminary to this, the Bureau of Mines, at the request of the military, has launched an immediate survey for suitable locations for synthetic plants with a capacity of 1,000,000 bbl. per day.  As an indication of the task ahead in making the Nation self-sustaining in synthetic liquid-fuel resources in the face of a natural petroleum shortage in the not too distant future, it was recently pointed out by W. G. Greenman, Director of Naval Petroleum Reserves, that to provide 1,500,000 bbl. of synthetic fuel per day (500,000 bbl. from each of shale, coal, and gas, using the Fischer-Tropsch process for the latter two cases), the following would be needed:  total plants, 65 (15 for shale, 25 for each of coal and gas); steel, 9,500,000 tons; construction costs, $4,300,000; mine costs, $650,000,000; and staff for plant operations and mining, 148,000 men.  It is estimated by the Bureau of Mines that synthetic plants smaller than those contemplated by the military would be nearly competitive with petroleum refineries; for a 10,000-bbl. per day plant producing motor fuel from subbituminous coal at $1.50 per ton the net cost would be 8.7 cents per gal. while a 20,000-bbl. shale oil plant could make synthetic crude oil for $1.92 per bbl., exclusive of profit and interest on the investment.