The petroleum refining industry converts crude oil into more than 2500 refined products, including liquefied petroleum gas, gasoline, kerosene, aviation fuel, diesel fuel, fuel oils, lubricating oils, and feedstocks for the petrochemical industry. Petroleum refinery activities start with receipt of crude for storage at the refinery, include all petroleum handling and refining operations, and they terminate with storage preparatory to shipping the refined products from the refinery. The petroleum refining industry employs a wide variety of processes. A refinery’s processing flow scheme is largely determined by the composition of the crude oil feedstock and the chosen slate of petroleum products. The arrangement of these processes will vary among refineries, and few, if any, employ all of these processes. Listed below are 5 categories of general refinery processes and associated operations:
Oil Refining
Separation processes
Separation processes
a. Atmospheric distillation
b. Vacuum distillation
c. Light ends recovery (gas processing)
Petroleum conversion processes
Petroleum conversion processes
a. Cracking (thermal and catalytic)
b. Reforming
c. Alkylation
d. Polymerization
e. Isomerization
f. Coking
Petroleum treating processes
Petroleum treating processes
a. Hydrodesulfurization
b. Hydrotreating
c. Chemical sweetening
d. Acid gas removal
e. Deasphalting
Feedstock and product handling
Feedstock and product handling
a. Storage
b. Blending
c. Loading
d. Unloading
Auxiliary facilities
Auxiliary facilities
a. Boilers
b. Waste water treatment
c. Hydrogen production
d. Sulfur recovery plant
e. Cooling towers
f. Blowdown system
g. Compressor engines
