Petroleum is a naturally occurring liquid found beneath the Earth's surface that can be refined

into fuel. Petroleum is a fossil fuel, meaning that it has been created by the decomposition of
organic matter over millions of years. It is formed in sedimentary rock under intense heat and
pressure.
Petroleum, complex mixture of hydrocarbons that occur in Earth in liquid, gaseous, or solid form. The
term is often restricted to the liquid form, commonly called crude oil, but, as a technical term, petroleum
also includes natural gas and the viscous or solid form known as bitumen, which is found in tar sands. The
liquid and gaseous phases of petroleum constitute the most important of the primary fossil fuels.

Petroleum refineries convert crude oil and other liquids into many petroleum products that people use
every day. Most refineries focus on producing transportation fuels. On average, U.S. refineries produce,
from a 42-gallon barrel of crude oil, about 20 to 19 gallons of motor gasoline, 12 gallons of distillate
fuel distillate fuel, most of which is sold as diesel fuel, and 4 gallons of jet fuel. More than a dozen other
petroleum products are also produced in refineries. Petroleum refineries produce liquids the
petrochemical industry uses to make a variety of chemicals and plastics.

Refineries operate 24/7

A refinery runs 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and requires a large number of employees. A refinery can
occupy as much land as several hundred football fields.

History

Distillation of kerosene and naphtha

The refining of crude petroleum owes its origin to the successful drilling of the first oil wells in Ontario,
Canada, in 1858 and in Titusville, Pennsylvania, U.S., in 1859. Prior to that time, petroleum was available
only in very small quantities from natural seepage of subsurface oil in various areas throughout the world.
However, such limited availability restricted the uses for petroleum to medicinal and specialty purposes.
With the discovery of “rock oil” in northwestern Pennsylvania, crude oil became available in sufficient
quantity to inspire the development of larger-scale processing systems. The earliest refineries employed
simple distillation units, or “stills,” to separate the various constituents of petroleum by heating the crude
oil mixture in a vessel and condensing the resultant vapours into liquid fractions. Initially the primary
product was kerosene, which proved to be a more abundant, cleaner-burning lamp oil of more consistent
quality than whale oil or animal fat.

The lowest-boiling raw product from the still was “straight run” naphtha, a forerunner of unfinished
gasoline (petrol). Its initial commercial application was primarily as a solvent. Higher-boiling materials
were found to be effective as lubricants and fuel oils, but they were largely novelties at first.

The perfection of oil-drilling techniques quickly spread to Russia, and by 1890 refineries there were
producing large quantities of kerosene and fuel oils. The development of the internal-combustion engine
in the later years of the 19th century created a small market for crude naphtha. But the development of
the automobile at the turn of the century sharply increased the demand for quality gasoline, and this
finally provided a home for the petroleum fractions that were too volatile to be included in kerosene. As
demand for automotive fuel rose, methods for continuous distillation of crude oil were developed.

Conversion to light fuels

After 1910 the demand for automotive fuel began to outstrip the market requirements for kerosene, and
refiners were pressed to develop new technologies to increase gasoline yields. The earliest process, called
thermal cracking, consisted of heating heavier oils (for which there was a low market requirement) in
pressurized reactors and thereby cracking, or splitting, their large molecules into the smaller ones that
form the lighter, more valuable fractions such as gasoline, kerosene, and light industrial fuels. Gasoline
manufactured by the cracking process performed better in automobile engines than gasoline derived from
straight distillation of crude petroleum. The development of more powerful airplane engines in the late
1930s gave rise to a need to increase the combustion characteristics of gasoline and spurred the
development of lead-based fuel additives to improve engine performance.

During the 1930s and World War II, sophisticated refining processes involving the use of catalysts led to
further improvements in the quality of transportation fuels and further increased their supply. These
improved processes—including catalytic cracking of heavy oils, alkylation, polymerization, and
isomerization—enabled the petroleum industry to meet the demands of high-performance combat
aircraft and, after the war, to supply increasing quantities of transportation fuels.

The 1950s and ’60s brought a large-scale demand for jet fuel and high-quality lubricating oils. The
continuing increase in demand for petroleum products also heightened the need to process a wider
variety of crude oils into high-quality products. Catalytic reforming of naphtha replaced the earlier thermal
reforming process and became the leading process for upgrading fuel qualities to meet the needs of
higher-compression engines. Hydrocracking, a catalytic cracking process conducted in the presence of
hydrogen, was developed to be a versatile manufacturing process for increasing the yields of either
gasoline or jet fuels.

Environmental concerns

By 1970 the petroleum-refining industry had become well established throughout the world. Delivery of
crude oil to be refined into petroleum products had reached almost 2.3 billion tons per year (40 million
barrels per day), with major concentrations of refineries in most developed countries. As the world
became aware of the impact of industrial pollution on the environment, however, the petroleum-refining
industry was a primary focus for change. Refiners added hydrotreating units to extract sulfur compounds
from their products and began to generate large quantities of elemental sulfur. Effluent water and
atmospheric emission of hydrocarbons and combustion products also became a focus of increased
technical attention. In addition, many refined products came under scrutiny. Beginning in the mid-1970s,
petroleum refiners in the United States and then around the world were required to develop techniques
for manufacturing high-quality gasoline without employing lead additives, and beginning in the 1990s they
were required to take on substantial investments in the complete reformulation of transportation fuels
in order to minimize environmental emissions. From an industry that at one time produced a single
product (kerosene) and disposed of unwanted by-product materials in any manner possible, petroleum
refining has become one of the world’s most stringently regulated manufacturing industries, expending a
major portion of its resources on reducing its impact on the environment as it processes some 4.6 billion
tons of crude oil per year (roughly 80 million barrels per day).

How crude oil is refined into petroleum products

Petroleum refineries change crude oil into petroleum products for use as fuels for transportation, heating,
paving roads, and generating electricity and as feedstocks for making chemicals.

Refining breaks crude oil down into its various components, which are then selectively reconfigured into
new products. Petroleum refineries are complex and expensive industrial facilities. All refineries have
three basic steps:

Separation

Conversion

Treatment

Separation

Modern separation involves piping crude oil through hot furnaces. The resulting liquids and vapors are
discharged into distillation units. All refineries have atmospheric distillation units, while more complex
refineries may have vacuum distillation units.

Diagram of a refinery distillation column and major products produced.

Fluid catalytic cracking distillation unit

Richmond Refinery, Fluid Catalytic Cracking Distillation Column.

Source: Chevron (copyrighted).

Refining workers overlooking a refinery

Caltex, Star Petroleum Refinery, Refining workers overlook refinery

Source: Chevron (copyrighted).

Inside the distillation units, the liquids and vapors separate into petroleum components called fractions
according to their boiling points. Heavy fractions are on the bottom and light fractions are on the top.

The lightest fractions, including gasoline and liquefied refinery gases, vaporize and rise to the top of the
distillation tower, where they condense back to liquids.

Medium weight liquids, including kerosene and distillates, stay in the middle of the distillation tower.

Heavier liquids, called gas oils, separate lower down in the distillation tower, while the heaviest fractions
with the highest boiling points settle at the bottom of the tower.

Conversion

After distillation, heavy, lower-value distillation fractions can be processed further into lighter, higher-
value products such as gasoline. This is where fractions from the distillation units are transformed into
streams (intermediate components) that eventually become finished products.

The most widely used conversion method is called cracking because it uses heat, pressure, catalysts, and
sometimes hydrogen to crack heavy hydrocarbon molecules into lighter ones. A cracking unit consists of
one or more tall, thick-walled, rocket-shaped reactors and a network of furnaces, heat exchangers, and
other vessels. Complex refineries may have one or more types of crackers, including fluid catalytic cracking
units and hydrocracking/hydrocracker units.

Cracking is not the only form of crude oil conversion. Other refinery processes rearrange molecules to add
value rather than splitting molecules.

Alkylation, for example, makes gasoline components by combining some of the gaseous byproducts of
cracking. The process, which essentially is cracking in reverse, takes place in a series of large, horizontal
vessels and tall, skinny towers.

Reforming uses heat, moderate pressure, and catalysts to turn naphtha, a light, relatively low-value
fraction, into high-octane gasoline components.
Treatment

The finishing touches occur during the final treatment. To make gasoline, refinery technicians carefully
combine a variety of streams from the processing units. Octane level, vapor pressure ratings, and other
special considerations determine the gasoline blend.

Storage

Both incoming crude oil and the outgoing final products are stored temporarily in large tanks on a tank
farm near the refinery. Pipelines, trains, and trucks carry the final products from the storage tanks to other
locations across the country.
Petroleum refineries process crude oil into many different petroleum products. The physical
characteristics of crude oil determine how the refineries turn it into the highest value products.

Not all crude oil is the same

The physical characteristics of crude oil determine how refineries process it. In simple terms, crude oils
are classified by density and sulfur content. Less dense (lighter) crude oils generally have a higher share
of light hydrocarbons. Refineries can produce high-value products such as gasoline, diesel fuel, and jet
fuel from light crude oil with simple distillation. When refineries use simple distillation on denser (heavier)
crude oils, it produces low-value products. Heavy crude oils require additional, more expensive
processing to produce high-value products. Some crude oils also have a high sulfur content, which is an
undesirable characteristic in both processing and product quality.

Refineries use more than just crude oil

Click to enlarge »
In addition to crude oil, refineries and blending facilities add other oils and liquids during processing to
produce the finished products that are sold to consumers. These other oils and liquids include liquids that
condense in natural gas wells (called lease condensates); natural gas plant liquids from natural gas
processing; liquefied gases from the refinery itself; and unfinished oils that are produced by partially
refining crude oil, such as naphthas and lighter oils, kerosene and light gas oils, heavy gas oils, and
residuum. Residuum is a residue from crude oil that remains after distilling off all but the heaviest
components.

Refineries and blending facilities combine various gasoline blending components and fuel ethanol to
produce the finished motor gasoline that is sold for use in the United States. They add biodiesel to
petroleum diesel fuel to make biodiesel fuel.

Refining output is larger than input

The total volume of products refineries produce (output) is greater than the volume of crude oil that
refineries process (input) because most of the products they make have a lower density than the crude oil
they process. This increase in volume is called processing gain. The average processing gain at U.S.
refineries was about 6.5% in 2017. In 2017, U.S. refineries produced an average of 44.73 gallons of
refined products for every 42-gallon barrel of crude oil they refined.

Did you know?

Gasoline accounts for the largest share of total petroleum products produced each year in U.S. petroleum
refineries.
Petroleum products produced from
one 42-gallon barrel of oil input
at U.S. refineries, 2017
Product Gallons
Finished motor gasoline 19.53
Distillate fuel oil 12.18
Kerosene-type jet fuel 4.16
Petroleum coke 2.23
Still gas 1.68
Hydrocarbon gas liquids 1.55
Residual fuel oil 1.05
Asphalt and road oil 0.80
Naptha for feedstocks 0.46
Lubricants 0.42
Other oils for feedstocks 0.29
Miscellaneous products 0.25
Special napthas 0.08
Finished aviation gasoline 0.04
Kerosene <0.01
Waxes <0.01
Total 44.73
Processing gain 2.73
S