The world uses gasoline and petroleum products to move merchandise and people, help make plastics, and do many other things. At a refinery, different parts of the crude oil are separated into useable petroleum products. Today, some refineries turn more than half of every 42-gallon barrel of crude oil into gasoline.
How does this transformation take place? Essentially, refining breaks crude oil down into its various components, which then are selectively reconfigured into new products.
All refineries perform three basic steps:
