Portions of the refinery would be replaced but not the whole refinery. For example, typical Cat Crackers would be replaced with VGO units and the like but the desalter, atmospheric distillation and vacuum distillation units would be unchanged.
What's implied in YOUR post is that getting as much gasoline out of the barrel as we do is a result of using EXTRA refining equipment. Could refineries be re-tooled by removing that extra equipment from the process?
If you only removed the equipment, we would be left with a lot of low value product like residual oil (bunker fuel) that has little use and value. Instead, subsequent processing units downstream of the distillation units breakdown the low-value, high-BTU, heavy oil into more desired products. Different markets desire different ratios of products.
Then, in reality, although it would cost some pretty big bucks, it's more than doable to move more toward diesel production at American refineries.
If, over time, we were able to convert roughly half our passenger vehicle fleet to diesel, I think that’d save a million or more barrels of oil per day. Seems like a worthy goal to me.
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