Petroleum refining processes are the chemical engineering processes and other facilities used in petroleum refineries (also referred to as oil refineries) to transform crude oil into useful products such as liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), gasoline, or petrol, kerosene, jet fuel, diesel oil, and fuel oils.
When you first enter the refining business it can be overwhelming trying to understand the basics. The refinery seems like a complicated maze of vessels and columns. How do the individual process units work together? Which hydrocarbon streams go where and why? The goal of this book is to demystify the refinery by explaining:
1) The purpose and operation of the major refining technologies: fluidized catalytic cracking, hydrocracking, delayed coking, catalytic reforming, alkylation, hydrotreating, and of course the crude and vacuum units
2) How different hydrocarbon streams flow through the refinery
3) Refinery margin-how it's calculated and optimization
4) How the refinery generates a profit