Talk:Oil refinery

Lack of new refineries

The history section currently states: "In fact, obtaining a licence to build even a modern refinery with minimal impact on the environment (other than CO2 emmissions) is so difficult and costly that no new refineries have been built in the United States since 1976. As a result, the US is becoming more and more dependent on the imports of finished gasoline, as opposed to incremental crude oil."

However, there's been some pretty mainstream work suggesting that collusion between oil companies rather than restrictive environmental regulations has been the major cause of the lack of recent refinery investment. In any event, it seems unreasonable to blame environmental laws for the US dependence on imported gasoline without something more to back it up. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DashingDan@gmail.com (talk • contribs) 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I would tend to disagree with both above suggestions. I assume we are talking about US refining? There certainly are complications with proper permitting for refineries, not only environmentally, but also due to "not in my backyard" mentalities in many proposed locations. There is NO conclusive evidence to indicate collusion on the part of refineries or oil companies. Stories certainly circulate, but nothing has ever been proven. I believe it to be a matter of profits. Most refineries in the US are only now beginning to run at or near 100% efficiency (most in the 90% range of design). Older and less efficient refiniries have been closed. The industry had excess capacity for years. Current demand can be met and there is talk of building new refiniries to meet the coming increase on the demand side. CBreeze 16:53, 8 September 2006 (UTC) --CBreeze talk

Found a reference, made a few edits. I thought even Helen Keller could have made the connection between "no new refineries in the United States" and "higher gas prices at the pump".Lowellt 04:10, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

No new refineries - more dependence on foreign oil is not a cause and effect relationship. There haven't been many new refineries, but old ones are being added to and expanded all the time. Multi-billion dollar capital expenitures are ongoing all the time to expand and upgrade the nation's largest refineries. A lot of the reticence of oil companies to invest in huge new refineries is uncertainty of the industry's future. Fuel alternatives and emerging technologies don't ensure that an expensive new refinery will be able to run at capacity for a long period of time (like CBreeze said). Deatonjr (talk) 19:09, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Page move

This should probably be at Petroleum refinery since oil has more meanings than just petroleum. Also vegetable oils are refined too, so oil refining has more meanings than this article suggests. If the article is at oil refinery it would have to cover both, which is awkward. Any thoughts? - Taxman ^Talk 13:04, August 16, 2005 (UTC)

I fully agree with you. Many of the oil and gas related articles are poorly titled. --Csnewton 15:46, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

I disagree. "Petroleum" properly speaking just means the light fractions of the distillation. It is a refinery for Crude Oil. --BozMo talk 09:41, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Image - Problem with Temperatures

The crude oil distillation image is good but the temperature data on it is incorrect (or misleading). The temperatures shown are the approximate boiling points of the HEAVIEST component of that fraction, not the temperature of the chamber or the liquid collected. Temperatures shown SHOULD be the BP of the LIGHTEST component of the fraction. As the lighter components "boil", small amounts of heavier components are carried with the lighter components even though the temperature is not close to the heavier component's boiling point (like water evaporating at 25ºC). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.240.151.121 (talk • contribs) 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Fire?

When I see an oil refinery, I often see a large orange flame coming from the top of a tall tower. What is this for? What is it called? Why isn't that flame used for something useful like heating or driving a turbine? ―BenFrantzDale 03:41, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

That is what is known as a gas flare. It is used as a discharge for noncondensible flammable gases that are difficult to process/use otherwise. These can include non-conforming gas products and emergency discharges. Non conforming products are usually obtained during upset operation of units or during startup/shutdown transients. Some condensible hydrocarbons are usually separated right upstream from the flare stack in a simple separator unit. However, due to the variable and sometimes unpredictable nature of the flare gas stream, it is difficult to design and operate a more advanced heat or material recovery system. As a personal note, there is a certain beauty that these flares bring to the nocturnal lanscape, especially in industrial areas where surroundings are usually unsightly. Wouldn't trade that for a steam boiler in a million years :-) --Unconcerned 05:37, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. They do look beautiful in that industrial way. Thanks for the link. —BenFrantzDale 05:52, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

The gas flare is a safety feature. If anything goes wrong inside the plant (a so-called trip) flammable and dangerous gases are led to the flare to be burned. Because it is not known when a trip occurs the flare must always be burning. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.211.156.107 (talk • contribs) 13 February 2007 (UTC)

SAP PP PI at Oil Refinery

Hi to all, I'm looking for someone who works in Oil Industry and ready to share how they work - particularly how they plan and schedule the production, whether with SAP, module PP_PI or with PIMs, or Excel and the most important question are they satisfied. I'll very appreciate any help, Thanks in advance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.90.237.2 (talk • contribs) 30 April 2006 (UTC)

GA nomination

This Good Article nomination is on hold for 7 days for the following reasons: Expand lead, see WP:LEAD, and there are too many short, stubby paragraphs and bullets. Rlevse 15:18, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Failed due to no response to concerns. Rlevse 23:12, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

The largest Refinery

The largest refinery in the world is located in Paraguana, Venezuela. Is called CRP (Complejo refinador paraguaná) and is conformed by two deep conversion refinerys. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.11.242.49 (talk • contribs) 16 August 2006 (UTC)

What is the capacity? CBreeze 17:15, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

i have a question

i rally want to know what is the most accurate theory that explains the origin of petroleum is it the biogenic one or the abiogenic one thnx — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lv4ever888h (talk • contribs) 07:13, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

The biogenic theory has the largest amount of supporting evidence but has weaknesses which alternative theories try to explain. (SEWilco 17:58, 5 November 2006 (UTC))

Garyville? Does the reader know where it is?

I'm just wondering if the typical reader knows where Garyville, LA is. I was going to just change the article to read (Marathon Oil's refinery in) Garyville, LA" instead of "Garyville", but thought I would ask for some feedback first. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rrrich7 (talk • contribs) 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that refinery is in Louisiana and I will change the article to include that. (By the way, please sign messages posted on Discussion pages.) - mbeychok 18:49, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

PDVISA

I worked at a small refinery called Pralca in Santa Maria, Venezuela last August for the catalyst changeout as a US Contractor. Does PDVISA own/operate all refineries large and small in Venezuela? I mean I know that PDVISA is the the Governmental Petroleum Division for the Venezuelan Government and regulate all oil/refinery products and such. My question I guess is why don't they have the equipment and training needed to do specialty work like Catalyst changeouts in their refineries... We watched 5 sets of 2 man teams, work with a wrench and a hammer for 2 days try to open the bottom heads of the two Ethyline Oxide Reactors we were to unload/load. All they needed was an impact wrench and sockets and the job would have been done in about 6 hours.. Why do they import American Contractors? Or do they just prefer it that way, as Americans are specailly trained and do the job quicker? Just curious . user:kittykat1001 11:56, 17 March 2007 {Contractor}

Lights

Why do they have all the lights ? Is it safety?? Security??8.8.9.61 21:30, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Refineries operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Obviously, lights are needed at night so that the plant operators can see what they are doing. Also, warning lights atop many of the taller structures are required for low flying aircraft. - mbeychok 22:34, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

The first refinery?

Interestingly the University of Warsaw credits Ignacy Łukasiewicz with building the first oil refinery also in 1856. The confusion came from the fact that it was called an oil distillery and not a refinery. In addition the refinery burned down soon after and was not rebuilt until several years later. Lukasiewicz was already refining oil from his oil wells two years before and built a commercial oil refinery in 1856. JRWalko 01:42, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

433,000 barrels/day certainly NOT the largest refinery

It's not even the largest in the USA - I've updated that paragraph. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Commutator (talk • contribs) 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Groups of refinery products

Hello! I added some info about groups of products to the Major products section since these terms are used sometimes (maybe they shouldnt), for example in Brent Crude article. If needed i can provide source information.
Arinnian 10:28, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, can you please provide source information, either in the article or here, if you are not sure how format the reference properly; editors with Wikipedia experience can insert the reference into the article once the source information is provided. H Padleckas 06:02, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Henry, there are literally dozens of ways of categorizing the major products from an oil refinery. The current categorization in this article as recently edited by Arinnian and yourself is one of the better categorizations. If you want references, I believe one or both of these would work:

• Refining Britain's Fuels: Glossary (scroll to Distillates)
• Refining: Simple Distllation.

- mbeychok 23:07, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Milt, thank you. H Padleckas 02:44, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

The only English source i know of yet is a book by William Leffler, Petroleum Refining for the nontechical person. There's a chapter called Distillate fuels.
Arinnian 04:02, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for adding the reference. H Padleckas 16:18, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

I made some changes there. I think it looks better now. I think that vacuum residuum isn't actually a distillate right? And also I wanted to ask - are wiktionary links considered external? Arinnian 04:46, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Residuum is not a distillate; that's correct. In my previous edit, I should have said "Distillation fractions ..." instead of "Distillates ...". In my latest edit, I added the qualifying word "Most ..." since a few refinery products do not clearly fall into one of your three groups, for example sulfur. Hydrogen is an intermediate product formed in processing units downstream of the distillation(s) and is not readily classified into one of the three groups. Petrochemicals and other final oil refinery products are often formed in units other than distillation in the refinery, often from mixtures of different distillation fractions.

Wiktionary links are external to Wikipedia, but are still part of Wikimedia, which includes Wikibooks, Wiktionary, Wikinews, etc. H Padleckas 16:09, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

It would be nice to have a section on how refineries affect the stock market.

My particular questions of interest are: Why does more refinery activity reduce the price of oil per barrel? Is that a short term affect on price which mean in the long term it actually causes the oil price to go up?

• Increased supply in face of stable demand will lower the price of a commodity. Deatonjr (talk) 19:10, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Ancillary units

There are three items under the title "Common process units..." that ought to be classed under a different title, say under "Ancillary units" as they are not really processing anything:

• Liquified gas storage units for propane and similar gaseous fuels at pressure sufficient to maintain in liquid form. These are usually spherical vessels or bullets (horizontal vessels with rounded ends.
• Storage tanks for crude oil and finished products, usually cylindrical, with some sort of vapor emission control and surrounded by an earthen berm to contain spills.
• Utility units such as cooling towers for circulating cooling water, boiler plants for steam generation, instrument air systems for pneumatically operated control valves and an electrical substation.

I propose to put these under a new title unless somebody strongly objects.LouisBB 23:20, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

SMALL REFENIREY FOR CAPACITY 500 TOMM IN DAY FOR KURDISTAN IRAQ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.90.19.222 (talk) 10:04, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Factory outlet gasoline?

This is probably a silly question, but do any refineries operate "factory outlet" gas stations where you could buy gas at a discount because it wouldn't have to be sent out by pipeline? Wnt (talk) 18:24, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Automatic Temperature Compensation (ATC)

Liquids expand as temperatures rise and they contract when temperatures decrease. Gasoline has a high expansion coefficient. Five years ago major Canadian oil companies, with the approval of Measurement Canada, accepted a system devised by U.S. oil refiners for their upstream operations and set a retail industry standard of temperature compensation at 15 degrees Celsius. As such, most retailers in Canada now have temperature compensated equipment that adjusts to that standard. It is a fact that 15 degrees Celsius is the American Petroleum Institute's accepted standard at the time of product transfer between refinery pipelines, ships and terminals. However, in all northern US states where the average ambient temperature is below that mark, industry practice, or law, excludes the sale of petroleum on a corrected basis into tank trucks or retail. In most states where the average temperature is above 15 degrees Celsius, retailers sell product on an ambient basis. 23:18, 22 June 2008 (UTC)Manic mechanic (talk) 23:18, 22 June 2008 (UTC)