Document LJVQ9o8DzbDK1y4O24Gbpgoed

PLAINTIFFS EXHIBIT r^rSTCQ-- 7 2.,* The Story of the Production of Ethyl Fluid in Baton Rouge An address before the Baton Houge Lions Club October 3,1944 CLINTON W. BOND It The StorY of the Production of Ethyl Fluid in Baton Rouge i T IS a pleasure to have this I chance to tell you, as leading citi zens of Baton Rouge, some of the things I've learned about Ethyl in the years I've been associated in that business. It is a fascinating story to me and always has been. I think it is one of the most interesting romances in modern chemistry. But particularly in the last few years when Ethyl fluid has been a prime munition of war -- and it has been recognized as such by the heads of the Army and Navy, as well as the pilots and engineers on the battle fronts--the drama of making chemi cals which command and increase the racing power of great engines, has had a new significance to me. Our part in the war is clear, for in every gallon of gasoline that powers our air and ground attacks against the enemy there is a thimbleful of Ethyl fluid, a "power potion" which often spells the difference between success and failure. As a number of you gentlemen may know, most of the Ethyl fluid produced, and most of the several chemicals that are used in its manu facture are made in our plant right here in Baton Rouge. Nearly every one of the numerous buildings or structures in this plant houses a sep arate chemical operation, each con tributing to the final end product. Ethyl fluid in aviation and combat gasoline is a prime munition of war. but we divide the plant roughly into three groups according to organization. What we call the sodium-plant --in reality the plant for the electrolysis of common salt to produce sodium and chlorine -- is considered one unit. It is operated for Ethyl by the Electrochemicals division of duPont. The acid and chlorination plants for the production of ethyl i FMP ; ' : | i > iniwn WI - . wr E--06660 The Ethyl Corporation plant in Baton Rouge produces most of the Ethyl lluid now in use. chloride are operated by the local division of Ethyl's manufacturing department. The tetraethyl lead plants, which together comprise the largest group of the three, are oper ated by the Organic Chemicals divi sion of duPont. Thus, we have three groups of employees and supervi sors working within one fence-line to produce one product. This might seem at first glance to be an odd situ ation and one that would present many difficulties of operation. And except for a spirit of cooperation and a mutual devotion to one cause on the part of everyone, it could be difficult I suppose. But we of Ethyl and duPont have a long history of association and cooperation, and as a representative of the Ethyl Cor poration I'd like to say that we are proud to have duPont men as team mates in the manufacturing side of our business. I think you will see better why this is so if I give you a quick once over of some of the past history of Ethyl and touch lightly on the dra matic highspots of chemistry before g-oing further into the wheres and whyfors of our Baton Rouge plant, what it does for the war effort, why we need more manpower immedi ately -- and something of the post war prospects of our business. Origin of An Idea Ethyl started as an idea in an auto- [4] E-06661 mobile research laboratory. Over twenty-five years ago Charles F. Kettering, then, as now, in charge of research work for General Mo tors, assigned Thomas Midgley to the job of finding out why engines knocked and how to stop that knock -- for knock was blocking the road to progress in the design of more efficient automobile engines. Tom Midgley was a mechanical engineer and knew little of chemistry. He and his associates, chief among whom were T. A. Boyd, now head of the Fuel Division of General Motors Research, worked for years on the problem. Before they found the an swer they discovered it was a chemi cal problem and by the time they found the answer Midgley was a chemist. I think he is recognized as one of the outstanding chemists in the country today and is the inven tor of two of our great modern chemical discoveries. One of these is the discovery of the antiknock properties of tetraethyl lead in gas- Thomas Midgley, Jr., who discovered fhe antiknock properties ot tetraethyl lead. oline and the other is the discovery of the non-toxic, non-inflammable refrigerant which is now sold under the name of Freon. Midgley is to day president of the American Chemical Society, and vice presi dent of Ethyl Corporation. Thomas Midgley, Jr. (at lelt) and T. A. Boyd, (at right) worked under ihe direction of Charles F. Kettering (center,) for years in their search for a practical antiknock compound lor gasoline. E"06662 wards. First of all, if tetraethyl lead were added to gasoline alone it would turn into lead oxide dur ing combustion and coat the inside of the engine with white paint. Furthermore, there was no known method of manufacturing tetra ethyl lead commercially. Some Early Problems The first problem -- how to com bine something with tetraethyl lead to make it a commercial antiknock compound -- was solved by the ad dition of ethylene dibromide. When mixed in the proper proportion with ethylene dibromide, the tetraethyl lead combined with the bromine was I Dr. Graham Edgar. Director of Research in the early days blown out the exhaust pipe without j of the Ethyl Corporation, and inventor of the octane scale building up objectionable engine i for measuring antiknock value, now vice president. deposits. The second problem -- When they finally found that manufacture--was worked out with tetraethyl lead was the chemical the discovery of a practical process, they were seeking to stop the knock which also involved a chemical re in gasoline and proved they were action of bromine. Certainly at this right by testing it in engines, one point you might have thought that might have thought that the re the research work was over, the search work was over. As a matter boys in the laboratory could shout of fact it had just started. There "Eureka" and ask the boss for a was no commercial solution to the raise. But they had still other prob search for a practical antiknock lems. compound for a long time after They knew they had a compound I f#, I E--06663 that would work and one that could be manufactured in small quanti ties, but they didn't know whether the public would buy their product or not -- and if they did, there was still another fly in the ointment; for there was not much bromine in the world. If the discovery were ever to be a big commercial success they would need something like twenty times what was then the total world production of bromine. To get enough Ethyl fluid to make a sales test, General Motors Cor poration entered into a contract with E. I. duPont de Nemours & Co., then, as now, one of the world's outstanding chemical concerns. Un der this contract a plant for the man ufacture of tetraethyl lead by the bromine process was built and put into operation by the duPont Com pany in 1923. The tetraethyl lead was shipped to Moraine City, Ohio where it was blended with other in gredients by General Motors Chem ical and on February 2,1923 the first gallon of gasoline was sold under the Ethyl trademark at a service sta tion of the Refiners Oil Company in Dayton, Ohio. I will not go into the details of the sales history from that point on, dur ing the period Mr. Kettering refers to as. the "shirt losing era" in any business, but will come back to the manufacturing problem. Bromine From the Sea The Dow Chemical Company at that time was the principal producer of bromine in this country, but even an expansion of their facilities didn't promise sufficient quantities' and besides, the price was very high. After a lot of digging around for ideas, it was decided to try to get bromine out of sea water. As a re sult of this the good ship "Ethyl" was equipped to go out to sea and "mine the ocean" to produce a com pound of bromine. The venture was l \ l i The good ship Ethyl which successfully proved that the recovery of bromine from seawater was commercially practicable. [7] l t. E-06664 not a commercial success and cost another half a million dollars on top of everything else that had been put into the program. But it did prove that bromine could be recov ered in quantity from sea water, given the proper kind of equipment. And subsequently, as a result. Ethyl went into a cooperative program with Dow Chemical Company to build and operate sea water plants. I think it is interesting that the Ethyl Dow Chemical Company, jointly owned by Dow and Ethyl, built and operated the first commer cial process for the extraction of a chemical from sea water. Nearly all the bromine used in our business to day comes from such sea water plants. When this war came, Dow Chemical developed a similar proc ess for the extraction of magne sium from sea water and this metal, once scarce, has had a big part to play in our nation's aviation program. A Marriage and a Birth Meanwhile the Standard Oil Com pany (New Jersey) had become very interested in possibilities of anti knock gasoline and were doing re search work on the use of tetraethyl lead, as well as on the problem of reducing its cost of manufacture. At that time the manufacturing cost of Ethyl fluid was so high that General Motors could not offer any profit to the oil companies who were its pros pective customers. The sales price to the oil company was three cents for enough Ethyl fluid for one gallon of Ethyl gasoline and the oil company charged three cents premium to the motorists for the Ethyl gasoline it sold. In other words, at that point it looked as though there might be a lot of business here -- but no profit. Then the Standard Oil Company [8] (New Jersey) discovered and pat ented a more economical method of manufacturing tetraethyl lead. This was known as the Kraus-Callis proc ess (after Doctors Kraus and Callis who discovered it) or the ethyl chloride process. As a result of this discovery we see this situation: Gen eral Motors had a product which ap peared to be very useful to the progress of the automobile industry, and Standard Oil Company (N. J.) had a manufacturing method for that product that looked as if it might put some profit into the busi ness. General Motors and Standard Oil Co. (N. J.) then formed a jointly owned corporation to manufacture and sell Ethyl Brand of Antiknock Compound to the oil industry. The new company took over General Motor's contract with duPont and entered into a new contract for duPont to operate tetraethyl lead plants at Deepwater, New Jersey by the Kraus-Callis process. Old plants, of course, had to be scrapped. An Expensive Baby As you can see, Ethyl was an ex- Earle W. Webb, president of the Ethyl Corporation since April. 1925. pensive baby. Before the product really got rolling it was in the red to the tune of about three million dollars. I have always felt that the success of the Ethyl business was a great tribute to the foresight of those executives in General Motors One oi the iirst man ufacturing plants when under con struction at Deep water, N. J. in 1926. This building is no longer used. i E--06666 and Standard Oil Company who had the courage to invest large sums of money and to continue to back the idea through periods when less- as tute minds might have dropped it. It is an example to me of the Ameri can enterprise system at work that is very significant in times like these. ' But the problems were not over yet. The young Ethyl Corporation was up against fundamental diffi culty that the added quality which Ethyl fluid gave to gasoline was not of much advantage except in motors with higher compression ratios than any that were then on the market. On the other hand, automobile man ufacturers could not very well build better engines until a better fuel was available and generally distributed in all sections of the country. It was to lick this problem that Ethyl started the engineering and research program which is an im portant part of its activities today and includes substantial -- and we think outstanding--laboratories near Detroit, Michigan and in San Bernardino, California. The ulti mate answer to every chemical prob lem which the Ethyl Corporation has faced has always come back to the automobile engine. It doesn't matter how good a chemical theory we may have ; the question is, "How much does it improve engine per formance ?".ThatIs the only reason people spend money for Ethyl gaso line: engine.performance. - I am goingirto^lkip quite a period ` in'history show^durihg which the young - business'jgrew; intosizeable volume,'and-come down to the time \. *- when we decided to put a manufac turing plant in Baton Rouge. Ethyl Comes to Baton Ronge By 1932 the full bite of the de pression was felt in the oil industry. Sales of Ethyl gasoline fell -- until less than a million car owiiers were buying it -- and sales of third grade gasoline went up. Oil companies were losing millions of dollars. - Many refiners could not meet the . standards of quality set by the lead ers for regular gasoline.-So ..in 1933 . Ethyl offered its customers aritiknock compound containing tetra ethyl lead for the improvement oL ~ their regular, or so-called housebrand gasolines. This resulted in a much larger volume of business and soon again we needed additional manufacturing facilities.- Baton Rouge offered many advantages as a site for a new plant. It was a favor able area for the high type labor needed in chemical industries, it was . convenient as a shipping point to large parts of the oil industry, and it was close to the source of supply of several chemicals used in the manu facturing process.- ' . . Other factors ` which influenced , Ethyl to come to .Baton Rouge were * the favorable tax exemption plans of the State for new industry, the civic . advantages of the community, the ~ character and hospitali|tyk)f-'it5rcitir'.. ' zens, the healthfulficlimate/'Sgood' i- sanitation, modern;.flre'y; biice. protection for- -ployees, good^schoois 1 '"06667 the decision was made and we bought about 200 acres in North Baton Rouge, adjacent to the prop erty of the Standard Oil Company of Louisiana and to the Solvay plant. This is convenient because we purchase certain refinery gases from Standard, which they deliver by pipe-line over the road, and we also have pipe-line connections with Solvay for salt brine which they supply to us. Construction was started in 1936. Like most people starting a plant, we underestimated the size of the place we would need eventually, and almost continuously since the first units were completed we have been engaged in one expansion program `after another. I might say-that at the time we bought the property we were selling less than one quarter of our present volume. An Integrated Plant Our Baton Rouge operation is what is known as an integrated chemical plant. Except for the ethy lene dibromide which is manufac tured at sea water plants by Ethyl Dow Chemical Company and shipped to us in tank cars, nearly all of the intermediate chemicals needed in the manufacturing proc ess are made in our own plant. We purchase electricity from Gulf State Utilities, common salt brine from Solvay, pigs of metallic lead from several' mining and smelting com panies, refinery stabilizer gas from Standard Oil of Louisiana, sul phuric acid from Consolidated Chemical Co., alcohol from various sources, and that is about all, except for ingredients used in small quanti ties such as dyes to color the fluid and small amounts of kerosene. Of course, we buy supplies and con struction materials and' the other commodities that every manufactur ing plant needs from time to time. INGREDIENTS IN ETHYL FLUID TMaoucna 3 ETHYl FLUID E--06668 Manufacturing Processes The manufacture of tetraethyl lead has represented serious prob lems from the start. There was no "prior art" in the large-scale pro duction of any organometallic com pound, and knowledge had to be accumulated by gradual experience. Tetraethyl lead is manufactured by the reaction of ethyl chloride with an alloy of sodium and metallic lead, and the immediate raw mate rials are therefore ethyl chloride, sodium and lead. With the excep tion of metallic lead, none of these is. available commercially in the quantities required, and for this reason, as well as in the interest of manufacturing economy, it was nec essary to include their manufacture at Baton Rouge. In the production of sodium, the two raw materials are salt brine and electricity. Salt is piped in from the Solvay Company's salt wells, twenty miles away. The salt is treated to high purity, evaporated to prac tically absolute dryness, and then charged to batteries of electrolytic cells where the salt is decomposed to sodium and chlorine. Of all of our Baton Rouge plant's electrical energy, a lion's share goes to the sodium process, and represents enough electrical energy for ap proximately five times the daily and domestic needs of Baton Rouge citizens. The sodium we produce from the electrolysis of salt is used in the production of tetaethyl lead. The sodium is melted with lead to form the alloy which, after grinding, is ready for the final reaction. In normal times, the chlorine formed in the electrolysis is burned with hydrogen, obtained from the adjoining refinery of the Standard Oil Company to form gaseous hydrochloric acid required for ethyl chloride manufacture. At present a substantial percentage of the chlorine is shipped to other war industries. Ethyl chloride is produced by two distinct processes. The first is the reaction of hydrochloric acid with ethyl alcohol. The second is by the hydrochlorination of ethy lene. In this process, refinery stabilizer gases consisting largely of propane are cracked and the cracked gases fractionated at low temperatures to separate the ethylene formed. This is allowed to react with hydrochloric acid gas in the presence of a catalyst to produce ethyl chloride. The Baton Rouge plant is the first commercial development of this method of manufacturing ethyl chloride. Ethyl chloride produced by either process is subjected to appropriate purification processes and is then ready for the final reaction with lead-sodium alloy. Women technicians are helping as assistants in the Development Section laboratories. - . 5 \ | j jj ' j | \ j ! ! ' i ; _ E-06670 Operating the distillation apparatus in one ol the - Development Section laboratories. Normally, all of the chlorine pro duced in the electrolysis of salt to make sodium and chlorine is used to produce ethyl chloride, but when chlorine for total war became criti cally scarce, we built a plant to make our own hydrochloric acid from salt and sulfuric acid. Since that time we have sold much of our daily output of chlorine for other war uses. In the tetraethyl lead manufactur ing process, the sodium-lead alloy and ethyl chloride are allowed to react at moderate pressures and tem peratures. At the completion of the reaction, the product is distilled with steam to separate the tetraethyl lead, and the lead sludge is collected and resmelted to pig lead. Our lead recovery operation is of considera ble magnitude since only one fourth of the lead in the alloy is converted to tetraethyl lead. In addition to tetraethyl lead, the finished antiknock fluid--Ethyl fluid--requires the addition of ethy lene dibromide, ethylene dichloride, and dye and kerosene The ethylene dibromide comes mainly from the Ethyl-Dow Corpo ration plants at Kure's Beach, N. C. and Freeport, Texas. At these -plants, the sea water, which- con tains an average of only 67 parts of bromine per million parts of water, is acidified and chlorinated; the bromine is blown out with air and concentrated by absorption, relibrated from the concentrated solu tion.. recovered by distillation, and finally allowed to react with ethy lene to form ethylene dibromide. Help for SYnthetic Rubber During the war period, particu- Pistons irom compressors in ethyl chioride plant. {> I ! E-06671 n w M aieiM W e.i,W M itl i r i i i i i m m iW W M M m iB D L li r larly during the early stages o the synthetic rubber program, we op erated parts of our plant for pur poses other than the manufacture of Ethyl fluid. For a while we made ethylene chloride for the Rubber Reserve Corporation and a part of our ethyl chloride facilities were used as an experimental operation to test and prove the workability of a process for the manufacture of butadiene: a compound that is used in the manufacture of Buna-N type synthetic rubber. The reason for this was that while a number of large plants designed to make this type of synthetic rubber were under con struction, the process had never been tested outside the laboratory and our facilities provided an op portunity to work out some of the "bugs" in the process. Those two programs are now completed and once again everything we make en ters into the final product except for a certain amount of liquid chlorine which we still furnish to other war industries. Ethyl Fluid In the War Today approximately two-thirds of our production goes into military gasoline. In fact, if gasoline for es sential civilian transportation is in cluded in the estimate, at least 85% of our present production is used directly in the war effort. In every gallon of high-octane gasoline now carrying the Allies' air and ground attack against .the enemy there is about a thimbleful of Ethyl fluid. It has now become the nation's most needed material to win the war quickly. Not a plane, ! i HERE'S HOW THE WAR AFFECTED THE USE OF TETRAETHYL LEAD We could not continue to withdraw from our stockpiles of tetraethyl lead to make civilian gasoline without en dangering military supplies. Since this was impossible, restrictions upon civilian use were necessary. USE OF TETRAETHYL LEAD WARTIME VS PEACETIME DECEMBER JUNE 194) 1944 (Reprinted by permission Petroleum Administration for War.) [15 3 ii E-06672 As fuel improves, airplanes fly higher, faster, carry more Joad. ET- 06673 tank, jeep or PT boat could operate efficiently without high-octane gas oline, in the manufacture of which Ethyl fluid is necessary. The very success of the Allied strategy, the tremendously broad ened and speeded up movement of our troops have called for more and more fuel. Because of the marvelous production of planes and mecha nized ground equipment, the ex traordinary performance of these machines, and the excellent train ing of the flying and ground per sonnel, we have lost far fewer planes and tanks than had been anticipated. This fact has added to the unex pectedly great demand, for .highoctane fuel and its vital component, Ethyl fluid. And the faster the war moves toward the finish, the faster our fighting men close in on Berlin and Tokyo, the more Ethyl they will need. Ethyl aviation gasoline made in America was credited with a large share in winning the battle of Brit ain, for it gave the RAF planes an advantage over the Luftwaffe. Geoffrey Lloyd, Great Britain's Pe troleum Secretary, has remarked: "I think we wouldn't have won the Battle of Britain without 100 octane -- but we did have 100 octane." - You can get a good idea of this high octane fuel by comparing tests on commercial planes with results in military planes. A twin-engine plane burning 87-octane fuel can climb at the rate of 1,000 feet a minute. This service ceiling on the same plane is raised from 22,000 feet to 28,000 feet by a change from 87-octane to 100octane, and its cruising speed is in creased from 176 miles per hour to 191 miles per hour. I might tell you, off the record, that although those are published figures, the full story when told will be even more dra matic. Military Needs for Powered Gasoline To the "A" card driver, who is used to buying his gas in three- gallon driblets, the volume of high- octane fuel consumed in this war is utterly fantastic. For instance: It takes a tank-car of gasoline -- 8.000 gallons -- to fill up a B-29 Superfortress. The entire produc tion of an average employee in the Ethyl plant at Baton Rouge for thirteen hours is needed to supply the Ethyl fluid for that one filling of gasoline for one B-29.' A single mechanized division of the Army uses 18,000 gallons of high grade gasoline every hour it is on the move. To keep each such divi sion moving requires the constant production of five operators in the Ethyl plant. Moving just one armored division from the French coast to Berlin -- about 475 miles -- would consume 350.000 gallons of high quality gaso line even if the division moved straight through without fighting on. the way. . Every worker in the Baton Rouge plant must be on the job for more than seven hours to produce enough Ethyl fluid to make enough 100- octane fuel for just one tanker load. A bomber group of B-17 Fort resses or B-24 Liberators is com posed of 48 planes." To fuel but one group for one bombing raid requires [17] 80 tank trucks of aviation gasoline -- containing enough Ethyl fluid to make a week of work for nine em ployees in the Ethyl plant in Baton Rouge. The gasoline requirements ot this war are already ten times greater than in World War 1. Practically all lighting grade gasoline used by the Army and Navy contains Ethyl fluid to give more power to our planes and combat vehicles when they need it the most. Gasoline with a 100-octane rating can be made without Ethyl fluid, but it is very expensive and in vol ume it could not begin to meet the tremendous demands of this gaspowered war. In fact, without Ethyl it has been stated that the entire American oil industry could not make enough 100-octane gasoline to keep one squadron of planes in the air. The octane rating of even that scarce super-gasoline could be in creased by addition of Ethyl. In fact, no fuel yet made is so good that Ethyl fluid will not improve it. Tripiane -- A Super Fuel For instance, just four weeks ago Mr. Kettering made a talk at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society in New York about the most sensational anti knock fuel yet discovered -- a hy drocarbon named triptane. Pure triptane, as General Motors is man ufacturing it today, will yield about twice as much power per pound or per gallon as pure iso-octane which is the standard of measurement for 100-octane gasoline. That is so good that it makes all other fuels which the oil industry has announced look insignificant by comparison. When people hear about these modern fuels some of them get ready to write the obituary of the Ethyl Cor poration. Friends ask me with con cern "What is Ethyl going to do when all these new high octane gasolines come on the market after the war?" Well, Mr. Kettering an swered that question also in discuss ing the characteristics of triptane with about as good an answer as I know. Pure triptane, as I said, is just about twice as good in an engine as 100-octane, but with a little Ethyl fluid added his charts showed it to be three times as powerful as 100octane. In other words, triptane is twice as good as iso-octane and Ethyl triptane is thrice as good! This gives you an insight, as a matter of fact, into how the Ethyl business operates and why oil com panies use it. Mr. Kettering esti mated that after the war triptane - could be made for something be tween 50^ and $1.00 a gallon. Now consider that if the oil refiner wants to spend less than a penny more he can make that triptane nearly twice as powerful. I admit that this is the prettiest case I know -- but it gives you an idea of the economics of high octane hydrocarbons plus Ethyl fluid. [18] E--06675 KNOCK LIMITED POWER CURVES FOR TRIPTANE I.M.E.P. PSI.- 2 3.4 5 6 7 ENGINE ADJUSTMENT [19] E--06676 Exterior view of Engineering and Research Laboratories of Ethyl Corporation in Detroit, Mich. Activities in Research Having originated in a research laboratory, the Ethyl Corporation has always been partial to research and in addition to the engineering research work on engines which I have mentioned, we have chemical and aeronautical laboratories. We are constantly looking for ways to improve our own product and nat urally we are always looking for new and better mixes or agents for antiknock fluids. On the latter type of research, however, it looks as though Midgley did too good a job in the first place to leave us much opportunity. Also, we must keep informed on new developments in refining tech nology because each new process may introduce factors which will affect our business. We must help our customers get the most out of our products and we are expected to know the answers to all questions touching on the antiknock proper ties of gasoline. This has led our research people into channels seem ingly far removed from the oil busi ness. They have studied the effect of increased compression ratios on power and economy, metallurgy, ignition systems, heat losses to cool ing water, exhaust gases and distri- Knock Testing Engine Laboratory in Detroit. Determining gasoline volatility in testing laboratory. -06677 bution of fuels in intake manifolds. With an eye to the future, they have been studying problems of super charging for some years. Of necessity we have been pio neers in knock testing equipment and knock testing procedures. We built the first knock test engine ever produced and at one time, when they were available nowhere else, manu factured and sold knock test engines to the oil industry and various re search laboratories. For several years the work of Ethyl's aeronautical laboratories has been devoted entirely to coop erative programs with the armed forces. The nature of their work and the projects on which they are cooperating are strictly confiden tial. But it may be said that, in effect, these laboratories are a part of the air forces of the Army and Navy. Our Engineering and Chemical Research Laboratories today are de voting a major portion of their time and facilities to projects connected with the war effort. These projects include the study and improvement of fuels and engines for airplanes, tanks, invasion boats, trucks and mobile power plants. Army tank engine being prepared /or dynamometer - tests in Detroit Laboratories. _ Pilot plant lor tetraethyl lead studies in Chemical Research Laboratories in Detroit. --06678 Research and Engineering Laboratory at San Bernardino, California. Gasoline Testing In addition to the research lab oratories we have six gasoline test ing laboratories located at strategic points throughout the country. The function of this department is to provide the sample inspection serv ices which our licensing agreement offers to customers. In other words, we test the refinery product of our customers to determine its require ment of Ethyl fluid to make Ethyl gasoline. Inspection reports on these samples are telegraphed to the licensee on the day the sample is received. These laboratories maintain a close check on the quality of fuels being marketed throughout the na tion through constant check of sam ples-- some 14,000 a year -- which are picked up by our field men. This information is of great value to our customers, to us and to automobile and airplane manufacturers in their efforts to determine certain design features of motors--compression ratios and pressures. The gasoline testing department also provides our research men with inspection data on special samples originating in various projects and furnishes in formation to the Safety Division on the blending operations of licensees. Chassis Dynamometer showing duct lor sup plying air at velocities up to 85 miles per hour to vehicle radiator at San Bernardino, Califor nia, laboratory. --06679 Tank car of Ethyl fluid ready for un loading at a relninery blending plant. At refineries. Ethyl fluid is stored in weigh tanks lor blending with gaso line under a completely closed system. Because of the toxic quality of concentrated Ethyl fluid we take exceptional precautions in the manufacturing process. Despite the un fortunate accident at our Baton Rouge plant a few weeks ago, our record of safety in manufacturing is an excellent one. Safety Factors - Because of the toxic quality ofconcentrated Ethyl fluid we exer cise rather rigid control over its handling even after it passes into the hands of the refiner. We evolved closed systems for blending fluid with gasoline at customer company refineries, which we think have been responsible for the excellent record of industrial safety over years of blending in literally hundreds of locations. Why Ethyl Pumps Are Dry Right now we are being asked by the Petroleum Administration for War to produce all the Ethyl fluid we can. Our product is ranked in importance with the production of planes and we have top priorities of all sorts including manpower to aid us in this job. Only a small percentage of Ethyl fluid production is today going into civilian gasoline and it is the opin ion of Government agencies in Washington as well as automotive and petroleum technologists that any further reduction in these civilian supplies might handicap our wartime transportation seri- [23] ! ; j i ; ; J j ! j j i E--06680 ously. Last week the Petroleum Ad ministration for War reduced the amount of premium gasoline again so that now there are roughly only 100,000 barrels a day of Ethyl gaso line available and that is hardly more than is needed to take care of those trucks and buses which re quire a higher antiknock gasoline than the gasoline now being sold as regular grade. There is some tetra ethyl lead in regular grade gasoline today but the average content is so low, and yet it means so much to the quality of that gasoline, that it is not deemed wise to deprive civilian gasoline of this small amount. This brings us back to aviation gasoline, the production of which is today our principal concern. That is where most of the Ethyl fluid is go ing. Some, of course, goes into mili tary gasoline for ground troops which the Army calls "all purpose" gasoline, a type of motor fuel very similar to the Ethyl gasoline you purchased for automobiles before the war. But that quantity is small in comparison to the amount of Ethyl fluid needed for aviation. The 100-octane aviation gasoline or "fighting grade" aviation gaso line, as it used to be called, is used by all Army and Navy planes at the front. The oil industry in this coun try has done a titanic job in expand ing the production of 100-octane gasoline and still supplies of it are so limited that a lower quality gaso line is used for training pilots in this country. So far we have never failed to deliver all the Ethyl fluid that the oil industry needed to make 100-octane aviation gasoline and we never intend to let that happen. More Manpower Needed Now, as I have explained, to make Ethyl fluid you need a lot of things. You need manufacturing plants, seawater, sulphuric acid, pig lead, electricity, sodium, and so forth. One factor I have not stressed that you need above all is manpower -- intelligent, capable operators to run the plants. If we needed more pig lead or more salt our problem might be easy. If we needed a new plant, it would take quite a while to build it. As it is, when all the components that go into Ethyl fluid are consid ered, there is always the one bottle neck, which you might say deter mines the total amount which can be produced. It is like baking a cake. You may have all the salt and flour and sugar you need but if you don't have the baking powder, you can't make a cake or if you have only a little baking powder, then the amount of cake you could make would depend on how much baking powder you have. I don't like to speak of manpower as a bottleneck but right now it is the factor which is determining the quantity of Ethyl fluid which we can make. We need more workers immediately in the Baton Rouge Ethyl plant. That is one of the reasons for the campaign to get more workers that has been put on here during the last month or so. Of course, if Germany should fold up tomorrow, our needs for Ethyl fluid would be lessened. Vic tory in Europe will "take the heat off us" so to speak. But the Army [24] t EVERY DROP OF ETHYL COUHTS [25] ^-06682 and the Navy do not figure on enough supplies for the most favor able conditions. Their strategy is to get enough material to win under the worst conditions and I can as sure you that from their schedule of estimates of requirements for Ethyl fluid, they are not banking on Ger many folding up tomorrow. Ethyl Fluid After the War That brings us to the position in which our business is going to find itself and the question of the func tion of the Baton Rouge plant after the war. Some of our friends are worried and some people even seem to be hopeful that the business of the Ethyl Corporation won't amount to much in the post-war years. I'd like tf> assure you that it is going to be better than before the war started but I can't do that because in busi ness you don't make promises until you have all the facts in hand. That is one of the differences between politicians and business men. Some politicians seem to think it's all right to paint a pretty picture of promises and then if they are not fulfilled, they pass the buck to somebody else. Business men seem to feel that if they make a promise they have to be sure they can deliver. So all I can say is that, so far as we can see, and we've looked into the picture mighty closely, the pros pects for the business of the Ethyl Corporation and, therefore, the prospects for its Baton Rouge plant, look sound to us. We were doing a nice business before the war started when Ethyl fluid for aviation gaso line was such a small part of our business that it didn't count. And we are laying our plans to surpass that business in the peacetime years which are ahead. Only the future can tell how accurate our estimates are. Right now there is only one job: to supply all the Ethyl fluid we can until Victory, and I can assure you we are not worrying about what will happen after the war is over. We are looking forward to Victory, looking forward with hope! ! [ 26 ] E-06683