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Upstream regards exploration and extraction of crude oil, midstream encompasses transportation and storage of crude, and downstream concerns refining crude oil into various end products. Petroleum is vital to many industries, and is necessary for the maintenance of industrial civilization in its current configuration, making it a critical ...
The crude oil distillation unit (CDU) is the first processing unit in virtually all petroleum refineries. The CDU distills the incoming crude oil into various fractions of different boiling ranges, each of which is then processed further in the other refinery processing units.
The Energy Information Administration of the United States Department of Energy publishes extensive statistics on the production, importation, and uses of petroleum in the United States. [43] In 1913, the United States was extracting 65 percent of the world's petroleum. [citation needed]. In 1989, the United States contained 5 percent of the ...
In 2018 road transport used 49% of petroleum, aviation 8%, and uses other than energy 17%. [156] Electric vehicles are the main alternative for road transport and biojet for aviation. [157] [158] [159] Single-use plastics have a high carbon footprint and may pollute the sea, but as of 2022 the best alternatives are unclear. [160]
The three most quoted oil products are North America's West Texas Intermediate crude (WTI), North Sea Brent Crude, and the UAE Dubai Crude, and their pricing is used as a barometer for the entire petroleum industry, although, in total, there are 46 key oil exporting countries. Brent Crude is typically priced at about $2 over the WTI Spot price ...
Petroleum refinery in Anacortes, Washington, United States. 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.
Oil field in California, 1938. The modern history of petroleum began in the nineteenth century with the refining of paraffin from crude oil. The Scottish chemist James Young in 1847 noticed a natural petroleum seepage in the Riddings colliery at Alfreton, Derbyshire from which he distilled a light thin oil suitable for use as lamp oil, at the same time obtaining a thicker oil suitable for ...
In 1915–1920 about 200 companies were established to exploit oil shale and at least 25 shale oil retorting processes reached to the pilot-plant stage. Discoveries of the large quantities of petroleum in eastern Texas ended the oil-shale boom. [34] One of technological achievements before World War II was invention of the N-T-U retort.