Refining Crude Oil and Products
Refining Crude Oil – Lesson Overview
The Crude Oil and Products Lesson consists of the following topics
- What is Crude Oil?
- Crude Oil Characteristics
- Types of Crude Oil
- Why do we Refine?
- Refining – a Boiling Process
- Distillation – The First Step
- Crude Oil Assays
- What is Oil Refining?
- What are Petroleum Products?
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What is Crude Oil?
Before learning about refining, it is important to understand a few basic properties of crude oil, the key raw material processed in a refinery.
Crude oils were formed millions of years ago as the remains of countless microscopic marine organisms, such as plankton, were deposited on the seabed and gradually buried deeper by the sediments accumulating on top of them. Over millions of years these remains were transformed by bacteria, heat and pressure into crude oil. As the result of variations in this process, crude oils vary in color, composition, and consistency. They are generally classified as” light” or “ heavy”, depending on proportion of heavy vs. light molecules present.
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Although I’m not an engineer, the course gave me many useful tools to understand the technicalities of the industry and now I can easily communicate with my contacts in the sector”.