Shell Puget Sound Refinery is only part of the bigger picture. And you might not have known that...

• Fossil fuels supply 95 percent of the world's energy, even though hydro, nuclear and geothermal energy use have tripled since 1970.
  
• Seventy percent of the nation's goods are transported in diesel-powered vehicles, helping to make it America's primary commercial fuel.
• At Shell Puget Sound Refinery, 42-gallon barrel of crude oil typically produces:
  • gasoline, 20 gallons
  • diesel fuel, 10 gallons
  • jet fuel, 4 gallons
  • liquefied petroleum gas, 2 gallons
  • bunker fuel oil, 1 gallon
    
  • other products (petroleum coke, asphalt, road oil, lubricants, waxes, petrochemicals), 7 gallons
    
• Domestic Refining Capacity has increased over the past ten years to approximately 17 million barrels per day, and several capacity expansion projects are currently underway. While no new major refineries have been built in the U.S. since 1976, refiners have been able to expand capacity as a result of revamping existing facilities.
• An additional 1.3 million barrels per day of refinery capacity projects are in the planning process or under strong consideration for the years 2006 to 2011.
  
• World proven oil reserves are estimated at nearly 1,000 billion barrels, enough to last almost 50 years at current rates of consumption. New discoveries are likely.
  
• Oil supplies 97 percent of U.S. transportation fuels.
  
• Over the past 25 years, gasoline prices have risen about 20 percent less than the cost of other goods and services.
  
• The oil industry spends more protecting the environment (over $10 billion) than it does searching for oil and gas.
• Oil and gas companies have invested $98 billion on energy technologies in development in the North American Market, between the years 2000 and 2005, in order to help meet projected U.S. energy demand growth. 
• Petroleum refineries are responsible for just two percent of chemical releases tracked by the EPA with their annual Toxic Release Inventory.
  
• New cars produce almost 98 percent less hydrocarbons, 96 percent less carbon monoxide, and 90 percent less nitrogen oxide pollution than new cars in the mid-1960's.
  
• Americans now drive two-and-a-half times as many cars three times as many miles, with total tailpipe emissions only one third of what they were 40 years ago.
  
• The U.S. oil industry employs nearly 1.5 million people.
  
• Petrochemicals help make thousands of products, from roofing and auto insulation to refrigerator linings to housepaints, clothing, detergents and sulfa drugs. Petroleum is also used to make plastics and organic chemicals.

*Source: American Petroleum Institute