Although more environmentally friendly forms of transport are beginning to used, petrol, diesel and jet fuels remain the backbone of every economy for transporting people and goods around the world, to produce these fuels an oil refinery is required.
Oil refining is an industrial process that refines crude oil into the petrol, diesel and other fuel types that our society relies on. Oil refineries are typically large, sprawling industrial complexes with extensive piping running throughout, this pipe carries streams of fluids between large chemical processing units. The crude oil feedstock typically arrives at a refinery in seagoing oil tankers, once at the refinery the tankers are off loaded and the crude oil is pumped into an oil storage depot commonly called tank farm. The crude oil is then transported through pipe lines to the process units, through a system of heaters, pressure vessels and distillation columns the chemical composition of the crude oil is broken down and transformed into the desired fuel type.