Shell gas (nitrogen enriched)

[Jarvicious]

The nitrogen has to be a gimmick.  LIke silentbob said, N comprises around 78% of the air getting sucked into the combustion chamber anyway so unless they think the extra nigrogen in the fuel is going to clean the intake valves as it blasts through, it's not going to do shit.

I have no doubt that Shell sells decent gas.  I only fill up at BP, Shell, Phillips, etc and anytime I go to a no name station the bike definitely suffers, but using Shell just becasue it's "nitrogen enriched" makes you about as informed as the average motorist that couldn't tell the difference between an alternator and a Terminator (maybe the average motorist could tell the difference between the two, I just thought it was fun that it rhymed).

[herm]

or as informed as those who insist on the highest octane possible.........because, it has more octane.


<ducks the shoes and runs screaming from the room>

[Mr Earl]

Nitrogen does lots of things:

N2 = air, for the most part
CN = cyanide, kills you
NH4OH = ammonia, cleans your floors
NH4NO3 = ammonium nitrate, fertilizer, or with fuel oil added becomes ANFO explosive
Rx-N = amine, an organic compound, found in some gasolines
HNO3 = nitric acid, very nasty stuff
KNO3 = potassium nitrate,the oxidizer in black/gunpowder, and libido-eliminator of WWII fame
N^3- = nitride, crazy stuff that combines with some metals like Ti and makes great fork slider coatings

So I don't know what Shell is adding nor what it's alleged to do, but organic chemistry (gasoline and such) is complicated stuff.  Could be straight PR, could be something better than the next guy's got.

As far as oil company profits, maybe some arithmetic is in order.  Remember when gas was $4 a gallon?  Oil at that time was bringing about $140 a barrel, if memory serves.  There are 42 gallons in a barrel of crude.  So if that barrel of crude consisted of nothing but gasoline, the bad oil companies would be getting $168.  But refinement yields only about 19 gallons of gasoline from every barrel of crude.  The rest yields products of incrementally lower value, like fuel oil, tar, and asphalt.  And remember, refinement costs money.  Their profit on gasoline is typically about 8-9%, less on the lower-end products.  When the price is high and volume is high, the dollar value of profit is high, but the percentage profit doesn't change much.

Pricing of commodities is a function of supply and demand.  When demand is high, prices rise until the demand diminishes, then prices drop.  OPEC is a cartel, and cartels historically don't work very well.  OPEC's no exception.  The gas crisis of the '70s taught OPEC a lesson about fixing prices, and many of its members cheat and sell oil below the agreed-upon price.  That's in many cases how OPEC's price fixing gets beaten.

Oil companies are corporations, with boards of directors and many, many stockholders.  The responsibility of the corporation (the board) is to maximize return on invested dollars or stock.  That stock is held by 401k plans and other retirement funds and trade unions, as well as by individuals and banks and even other corporations.  If the stock performs poorly it becomes undesirable and is sold off, lowering the price and the value of the corporation.

Spending money on alternative fuel R&D is a no-profit exercise.  When gasoline profits are large, it's economically feasible and a worthwhile investment.  When profits shrink - like when the gas price drops - there are less disposable funds to throw around.  Naturally R&D suffers at that circumstance.  It's a business decision.

[NAKID]

It's immaterial what the actual profit per barrel is. Here is an article from May of this year regarding a fall in profits for Chevron in the first quarter.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/01/BUU017D17A.DTL

Yes, you read that right. Their profits dropped to $1.84 BILLION. That's profit, after costs such as refinement and paying employee wages...

[herm]

It's immaterial what the actual profit per barrel is. Here is an article from May of this year regarding a fall in profits for Chevron in the first quarter.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/01/BUU017D17A.DTL

Yes, you read that right. Their profits dropped to $1.84 BILLION. That's profit, after costs such as refinement and paying employee wages...

thank you.
and to anyone who feels like they need to defend the poor oil companies.......
save it.

[Popeye the Sailor]

I have no doubt that Shell sells decent gas.  I only fill up at BP, Shell, Phillips, etc and anytime I go to a no name station the bike definitely suffers, but using Shell just becasue it's "nitrogen enriched" makes you about as informed as the average motorist that couldn't tell the difference between an alternator and a Terminator (maybe the average motorist could tell the difference between the two, I just thought it was fun that it rhymed).

You do know most of those stations just get it from whichever major supplier is cheapest, right?


There is no "no name" company out there, that buys crude, refines it to gas, and then sells it specifically to no-name gas stations.

[Triple J]

You do know most of those stations just get it from whichever major supplier is cheapest, right?


There is no "no name" company out there, that buys crude, refines it to gas, and then sells it specifically to no-name gas stations.

They all start with the same crude, but some vendors add different additives/detergents. There can be a difference. My 1st job ever was at the tank farm in Las Vegas. I worked for Saveway Distributing and several different gas stations purchased gas from us (refined in LA area and delivered via a pipeline). Texaco had their own tanks though.

Also, my 2nd car ('84 Dodge Charger) wouldn't run for shit on Arco gas. It would just lose power for no reason. Dodge couldn't find anything wrong...so they suggested I try using something other than Arco. I never had the problem again.

[scott_araujo]

Nitrogen does lots of things:

N2 = air, for the most part
CN = cyanide, kills you
NH4OH = ammonia, cleans your floors
NH4NO3 = ammonium nitrate, fertilizer, or with fuel oil added becomes ANFO explosive
Rx-N = amine, an organic compound, found in some gasolines
HNO3 = nitric acid, very nasty stuff
KNO3 = potassium nitrate,the oxidizer in black/gunpowder, and libido-eliminator of WWII fame
N^3- = nitride, crazy stuff that combines with some metals like Ti and makes great fork slider coatings

You forgot my favorite:
TNT - Tri Nitrogen Toluene.  Ok, not it's chemical formula but I think we all know what it is.  Nitrogen can make all kinds of different things.

So I spent 30 seconds looking around and found this article:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1610443/shells_nitrogen_enriched_gasoline_pump.html?cat=27

Though it's very short here are some points it makes:
1) The reason Nitrogen detergents are supposed too be better is that they are more stable at higher temperatures.
2) The nearly complete lack of any substantive information from Shell seems to indicate that this is just some new form of detergent and the campaign is more hype than fact.
3) Though all the industry gasoline detergents help remove engine deposits they can leave their own deposits.
4) A self proclaimed PhD says that to get the best cleaning you need to change your gasoline brand every 5000 miles.

While there seems to be little factual support for anything in the article it's more than I can find from Shell and points 2 & 4 seem to make sense to me, though I have no support for them either.

Scott

[dlearl476]

To be fair American oil companies (Shell, Exxon, Velero, Getty, et al) have little or nothing to do with setting prices.

While what you say is true, Shell isn't a US company

Contact us
Shell headquarters
Carel van Bylandtlaan 16, 2596 HR The Hague, The Netherlands

Postal address:
PO box 162, 2501 AN  The Hague, The Netherlands

Tel. +31 70 377 9111

.