Puzzled about oil

[carthur]

I have a 300E (90) and it uses oil, at a rate from what I can see, is 'normal' but nonetheless high in my view. (2 litres per 5000km or so...only car that Ive ever owned that viewed that as normal)

The other day I had to do the drive-clean test to renew the plates here in Ontario, and the results were, in the tech's words, "really decent" with HCs at 20 PPM and CO2 at .1% or something insignificant like that.

While I'm pretty happy with the emissions test results, my puzzlement is this: where does the oil that is being consumed go, if not burned out the cylinders/exhaust? Why would the HC value not be higher than "really decent"?

Thanks

CB