Oil Refinery:

An oil refinery or petroleum refinery (Crude Oil Processing Facility) is an industrial process plant where crude oil is processed and refined into more useful petroleum products, such as gasoline, diesel fuel, asphalt base, heating oil, kerosene, and liquefied petroleum gas.  

 

Crude Oil:

Crude oil is a naturally occurring liquid composed mostly of hydrogen and carbon.  Crude oil is flammable liquid consisting of a complex mixture of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights and other liquid organic compounds that are found in geologic formations beneath the Earth's surface.

 

Desalter Unit:

A desalter unit is a process unit that removes salt from the crude oil. The desalting is usually the first process in crude oil refining. The salt content after the desalter is usually measured in PTB - pounds of salt per thousand barrels of crude oil.  Another specification is Basic sediment and water

 

Crude Distillation Unit:

Crude Distillation Unit (CDU) or Atmospheric Distillation Unit (ADU) is the principal separation method that aims at obtaining the different petroleum products at various boiling ranges. The primary atmospheric distillation takes place in the distillation column.

 

Vacuum distillation Unit:

Vacuum distillation Unit (VDU)  is a method of distillation whereby the pressure above the liquid mixture to be distilled is reduced to less than its vapor pressure (usually less than atmospheric pressure) causing evaporation of the most volatile liquid(s) (those with the lowest boiling points). This distillation method works on the principle that boiling occurs when the vapor pressure of a liquid exceeds the ambient pressure. Vacuum distillation is used with or without heating the mixture.

 

Reformer Unit:

Catalytic reforming is a chemical process used to convert petroleum refinery naphthas, typically having low octane ratings, into high-octane liquid products called reformates which are components of high-octane gasoline (also known as petrol). Basically, the process re-arranges or re-structures the hydrocarbon molecules in the naphtha feedstocks as well as breaking some of the molecules into smaller molecules.

 

Visbreaking unit:
Visbreaking unit is a processing unit in oil refinery whose purpose is to reduce the quantity of residual oil produced in the distillation of crude oil and to increase the yield of more valuable middle distillates (heating oil and diesel) by the refinery. A visbreaker thermally cracks large hydrocarbon molecules in the oil by heating in a furnace to reduce its viscosity and to produce small quantities of light hydrocarbons (LPG and gasoline).

 

Fluid catalytic cracking Unit:

Fluid catalytic cracking unit (FCC) is the most important conversion process used in petroleum refineries. It is widely used to convert the high-boiling, high-molecular weight hydrocarbon fractions of petroleum crude oils to more valuable gasoline, olefinic gases, and other products. Cracking of petroleum hydrocarbons was originally done by thermal cracking, which has been almost completely replaced by catalytic cracking because it produces more gasoline with a higher octane rating. It also produces byproduct gases that are more olefinic, and hence more valuable, than those produced by thermal cracking.

Hydrocracking unit:

Hydrocracking is similar to fluid catalytic cracking unit,  but uses a different catalyst, lower temperatures, higher pressure, and hydrogen gas. It takes heavy oil and cracks it into gasoline and kerosene (jet fuel). 

 

Coking Unit:

Coking unit is an oil refinery processing unit that converts the residual oil from the vacuum distillation column or the atmospheric distillation column into low molecular weight hydrocarbon gases, naphtha, light and heavy gas oils, and petroleum coke. The process thermally cracks the long chain hydrocarbon molecules in the residual oil feed into shorter chain molecules.

 

Alkylation Unit:

Alkylation is the transfer of an alkyl group from one molecule to another. The alkyl group may be transferred as an alkyl carbocation, a free radical, a carbanion or a carbene (or their equivalents).Alkylating agents are widely used in chemistry because the alkyl group is probably the most common group encountered in organic molecules.

 

Gasoline:

Motor Gasoline or Petrol is one of the commonly used automotive fuels. It is a mixture of cyclic compounds known as ‘napthas’.

 

Diesel:

Diesel oil is primarily used as transportation fuel in compression ignition engines in various types of vehicles. A kind of diesel oil also known as ‘gas oil’ can be domestically used for heating. Diesel is less volatile (or heavier) than gasoline and kerosene.

 

Liquefied Petroleum Gas:

Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) is mainly mixture of propane and butane (C3+C4). These gases separated from the top of Crude Distillation Unit are liquefied under pressure and sold as cooking fuel.

 

Kerosene:

Most of refinery produced kerosene can be used as high quality Aviation Turbine Fuel (ATF) or Jet Fuel. Some of that kerosene can be used for domestic purposes as heating or cooking oil. Kerosene is less volatile than gasoline and separated from crude oil after the napthas have boiled off.

 

Fuel oil:

Fuel oil is a fraction obtained from petroleum distillation, either as a distillate or a residue. A range of different grades of fuel oils is produced from crude oil after boiling off the lighter products such as gasoline, naptha, kerosene etc. The lighter grades of fuel oil are used as transportation fuel for compression engines with low velocities and heavier grades of fuel oil are used as fuel to boilers, power stations etc.

 

Bitumen:

Bitumen also known as Asphalt is the heaviest cut of hydrocarbons left at the bottom after boiling off all the hydrocarbons usable as fuels. It is primarily used as road covering material, but can also be used as a waterproofing material. 

 

Gross refining margin:

Gross refining margin (GRM) is the difference between total value of petroleum products produced from a refinery and price of crude that is used to produce them. If the crude is at US $100 per barrel and the basket of petroleum products are sold at US $110 per barrel, the GRM is at US $10 per barrel.