Quote:
Originally Posted by Raellus
It's only canon for v2.2? Good to know.
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LOL...V1 for the win, always. I don't think I could tell you the first thing about the 2.2 timeline? Does anyone use it?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Raellus
I'm not a maths guy, but would it be more or less efficient to fuel tankers full of crude and escort them (also requiring refined fuel) from the Persian Gulf to the Kenyan refineries, rather than just refining the Gulf crude in the operational refineries already in the region (per the RDF sourcebook)?
If I had to guess, I'd go with less efficient, maybe even much less efficient. What do y'all think about this?
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Yeah, to me it makes zero sense to ship unrefined crude across the Indian Ocean to be refined and then shipped back again. I think shipping oil to the Gulf is analogous to shipping snow to Alaska.
Some rough numbers from here
http://abarrelfull.wikidot.com
If my maths are right, the combined output of current refineries in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait and Iran is somewhere in the region of five million barrels per day (4,971,000 rounded off). I can't easily ascertain what that figure might have been in 1996 / 1997 but let's knock 10 per cent and call it four and a half million. That's the main producers - if you include Qatar, Jordan, and Oman you'll get another 600,000 to 700,000.
The total output of Kenya's solitary refinery is listed as 90,000 barrels per day. Let's knock of the same 10 per cent for 1996 / 1997 levels and that gives is 81,000. So even if the main producers in the Middle East had suffered 90% damage (i.e. nowhere near full capacity) they'd still comfortably exceed Kenya's (full capacity) production. And you don't have to factor in fuel for the tankers / ships. And, as we've already established, the Gulf refineries are producing enough to
export. Ergo, they have a surplus. At least according to the RDF Sourcebook and V1 canon.
Sure, as was mentioned upthread, it doesn't hurt to have MORE capacity, but to posit that the 'the Mombasa refinery and port is what is keeping the US forces in the Middle East a going concern' makes no sense to me - Mombassa represents a small fraction of the total refinery capacity available in the Gulf. And I seriously doubt that the fuel costs involved in convoying oil backwards and forwards across the Indian Ocean would justify an attempt.
There's also practicalities. An Ultra Large Crude Carrier (ULCC) can easily carry two million barrels. Refined at a rate of 81,000 barrels per day that would take about 25 days to process a complete load. Add in shipping time and you're probably talking about a month. Let's go back to our Gulf refineries and presume 90% damage, which leaves capacity to process approx 450,000 barrels per day. That would take less than five days to process the same 2,000,000 barrels. And there is precisely zero chance of your ULCC sinking on the way back, taking your 2,000,000 barrels of refined oil to the bottom of the IO.