Oil refinery

Anacortes Refinery, on the north end of March Point southeast of Anacortes, Washington, United States
Grangemouth Refinery, in Scotland
Jamnagar Refinery, the world's largest oil refinery, in Gujarat, India

An oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial process plant where petroleum (crude oil) is transformed and refined into products such as gasoline (petrol), diesel fuel, asphalt base, fuel oils, heating oil, kerosene, liquefied petroleum gas and petroleum naphtha.[1][2][3] Petrochemical feedstock like ethylene and propylene can also be produced directly by cracking crude oil without the need of using refined products of crude oil such as naphtha.[4][5] The crude oil feedstock has typically been processed by an oil production plant. [1] There is usually an oil depot at or near an oil refinery for the storage of incoming crude oil feedstock as well as bulk liquid products. In 2020, the total capacity of global refineries for crude oil was about 101.2 million barrels per day.[6]

Oil refineries are typically large, sprawling industrial complexes with extensive piping running throughout, carrying streams of fluids between large chemical processing units, such as distillation columns. In many ways, oil refineries use many different technologies and can be thought of as types of chemical plants. Since December 2008, the world's largest oil refinery has been the Jamnagar Refinery owned by Reliance Industries, located in Gujarat, India, with a processing capacity of 1.24 million barrels (197,000 m3) per day.

Oil refineries are an essential part of the petroleum industry's downstream sector.[7]

  1. ^ Gary, James H & Handwerk, Glenn E (1984). Petroleum Refining Technology and Economics (2nd ed.). Marcel Dekker. ISBN 978-0-8247-7150-8.
  2. ^ Leffler, William L (1985). Petroleum refining for the nontechnical person (2nd ed.). PennWell. ISBN 978-0-87814-280-4.
  3. ^ Speight, James G (2006). The Chemistry and Technology of Petroleum (4th ed.). CRC Press. ISBN 0-8493-9067-2.
  4. ^ "Exxon starts world's 1st crude-cracking petrochemical unit". Reuters. January 8, 2014. Archived from the original on June 17, 2018. Retrieved April 13, 2018.
  5. ^ "Converting Crude to Ethylene Technology Breakthrough". August 2, 2016. Archived from the original on January 12, 2018. Retrieved April 13, 2018.
  6. ^ "Global oil refinery capacity by country 2020". Statista. Archived from the original on December 27, 2021. Retrieved December 27, 2021.
  7. ^ Cheary, Michael (March 19, 2015). "Oil & Gas: What is the downstream process?". Reed. Retrieved August 22, 2022.