Oil and Gas Refinery

The basic component of an oil and gas refinery is the primary distillation process where oil and gas are refined by means of suitable distillation and chemical reactions in the refineries. These refineries convert the crude oil feedstock into commercial products resulting in the production of a variety of valuable fuels and lubricants and also feedstock for other downstream processes. Oil and gas refinery is an industrial process where crude oil is processed into most useful petroleum products like gasoline, kerosene, heating oil, asphalt base, diesel fuel and liquefied petroleum gas. The crude oil and gas feed stock has typically processed by an oil production plant.

Oil and gas refinery plant:

Crude oil is not generally useful but it has been used directly as a burner fuel for steam vessel propulsion, the lighter elements form explosive vapors in the fuel tanks and are therefore hazardous. The different hydrocarbon molecules in crude oil are separated in a refinery into components which can be used as fuels, lubricants and as feedstock in petrochemical processes. During refinery process, different boiling points allow the hydrocarbons to be separated by fractional distillation. During the process, the crude oil is injected at the base of a furnace; here the pressure used is close to atmospheric pressure. Then it is heated to 350-400°C. At this temperature It starts to evaporate and begins to rise inside the fractionating column. All that crude oil is left at the bottom of the furnace are the heavy products known as residues. When vapour starts to rise towards the top of the column, its temperature goes down. Further the heaviest fractions of these vapours starts to condense into liquids, which can be recovered on trays situated at different levels in the column. This process continuous until the temperature at the top of the column is 150°C. At the top of the fractionating column fractions have lower boiling points than the fractions at the bottom. Refinery will convert heavy hydrocarbons and lighter gaseous elements into valuable products.

The petroleum products obtained are light distillates, middle distillates, heavy distillates and residuum. The crude oil is distilled and separated into fractions as shown in the above figure.

The products obtained from the oil and gas refinery:

1. Liquefied petroleum gas
2. Gasoline
3. Naphtha
4. Kerosene and its related aircraft fuels
5. Diesel fuel
6. Fuel oils
7. Lubricating oils
8. Paraffin wax
9. Asphalt
10. Petroleum coke.

List of Refineries

Name of the Refinery Location

• Reliance Jamnagar Complex Jamnagar, India
• Paraguana Refining Complex Amuay and Yeosu Refinery South Korea
• Jurong Island Refinery Singapore
• Baytown Refinery Baytown, TX,
• Ras Tanura Refinery Eastern Province
• S-Oil Ulsan Refinery South Korea
• Baton Rouge Refinery Baton Rouge, LA,
• Hovensa LLC Virgin Islands
• BP Texas City Texas City TX,
• Mina A1-Ahmadi Refinery Kuwait
• Pulau Bukom Refinery Singapore
• Abadan Refinery Iran
• Mailao Refinery Taiwan
• Marathon Petroleum company Garyville