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Tertiary recovery begins when secondary oil recovery is not enough to continue adequate extraction, but only when the oil can still be extracted profitably. This depends on the cost of the extraction method and the current price of crude oil. When prices are high, previously unprofitable wells are brought back into use, and when they are low ...
Winterization of oil is a process that uses a solvent and cold temperatures to separate lipids and other desired oil compounds from waxes.Winterization is a type of fractionation (also known as fractionate crystallization), the general process of separating the triglycerides found in fats and oils, using the difference in their melting points, solubility, and volatility.
Steam injection is an increasingly common method of extracting heavy crude oil. Used commercially since the 1960s, [1] it is considered an enhanced oil recovery (EOR) method and is the main type of thermal stimulation of oil reservoirs. There are several different forms of the technology, with the two main ones being Cyclic Steam Stimulation ...
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 ...
Enhanced oil recovery (abbreviated EOR), also called tertiary recovery, is the extraction of crude oil from an oil field that cannot be extracted otherwise. Whereas primary and secondary recovery techniques rely on the pressure differential between the surface and the underground well, enhanced oil recovery functions by altering the physical or ...
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.
The hot crude oil is then passed into a distillation column that allows the separation of the crude oil into different fractions depending on the difference in volatility. The pressure at the top is maintained at 1.2–1.5 atm [ 2 ] so that the distillation can be carried out at close to atmospheric pressure, and therefore it is known as the ...
Crude oil density is commonly expressed in degrees of American Petroleum Institute (API) gravity which are associated with specific gravity. The lower the API gravity, the denser the oil. The API gravity of liquid crude oil ranges from 4º for tar rich in bitumen to condensates that have an API gravity of 70º. Heavy oils are classified between ...