Petroleum products
Petroleum
products are important and useful materials
obtained from crude oil (petroleum) as it is processed in oil refineries.
Unlike petrochemicals, which are a collection of well-defined usually pure
chemical compounds, petroleum products are complex mixtures. The majority of
petroleum is converted to petroleum products, which includes several classes of
fuels.
Going
by the composition of the crude oil and depending on the demands of the market,
refineries can produce different shares of petroleum products. The largest
share of oil products is used as "energy carriers", i.e. various
grades of fuel oil and gasoline. These fuels include or can be blended to give
gasoline, jet fuel, diesel fuel, heating oil and heavier fuel oils. Heavier
(less volatile) fractions can also be used to produce asphalt, tar, paraffin
wax, lubricating oils and other heavy oils. Refineries also produce other
chemical some of which are used in chemical processes to produce plastics and
other useful materials. Since petroleum often contains a few percent sulphur-containing
molecules, elemental sulfur is also often produced as a petroleum product.
Carbon, in the form of petroleum coke, and hydrogen may also be produced as
petroleum products. The hydrogen produced is often used as an intermediate
product for other oil refinery processes such as hydro−cracking and
hydrodesulphurization
Categories
·
Major petroleum
products of refineries.
·
Special petroleum
end products.
·
Petroleum
By−products
Major petroleum products.
·
Asphalt
·
Diesel
fuel
·
Fuel oils
·
Gasoline
·
Jet fuel
·
Kerosene
·
Liquefied
petroleum gas (LPG)
·
Lubricating
oils
·
Paraffin
wax
·
Tar
·
Petrochemicals
Special petroleum end
products.
Oil refineries will blend various
feed stocks, mix appropriate additives, provide short term storage, and prepare
for bulk loading to trucks, barges, product ships, and railcars.
- Gaseous fuels such as propane, stored and shipped in liquid form under pressure in specialized railcars to distributors.
- Liquid fuels blending (producing automotive and aviation grades of gasoline, kerosene, various aviation turbine fuels, and diesel fuels, adding dyes, detergents, antiknock additives, oxygenates, and anti-fungal compounds as required). Shipped by barge, rail, and tanker ship. May be shipped regionally in dedicated pipeline to point consumers, particularly aviation jet fuel to major airports, or piped to distributors in multi-product pipelines using product separators called pipeline inspection gauge ("pigs").
- Lubricants (produces light machine oils, motor oils, and greases, adding viscosity stabilizers as required), usually shipped in bulk to an offsite packaging plant.
- Paraffin wax, used in the packaging of frozen foods among others. May be shipped in bulk to a site to prepare as packaged blocks.
- Slack wax, a raw refinery output comprising a mixture of oil and wax used as a precursor for scale wax and paraffin wax and as-is in non-food products such as wax emulsions, construction board, matches, candles, rust protection, and vapor barriers.
- Sulphur, byproduct of sulphur removal from petroleum, which contain percent of organosulphur compounds.
- Bulk tar shipping for offsite unit packaging for use in tar-and-gravel roofing or similar uses.
- Asphalt- used as a binder for gravel to form asphalt concrete which is used for paving roads, lots, etc. An asphalt unit prepares bulk asphalt for shipment.
·
Petroleum coke
used in specialty carbon products such as certain types of electrodes or as
solid fuel.
·
Petrochemicals
or petrochemical feedstocks. Petrochemical are organic compounds that are the ingredients for the chemical
industry, ranging from polymers and pharmaceuticals. Representative
petrochemicals are ethylene and benezene−toluene−xylenes("BTX").
Petroleum By-products
More
than 6000 items are made from petroleum waste by-products including:
Fertilizer, Linoleum, Perfume, Insecticide, Petroleum Jelly, Soap, Vitamin
Capsules.
