Petroleum Product

Petroleum Product

Petroleum products, such as gasoline, kerosene, home heating oil, residual fuel oil and lubricating oils, come from one source crude oil found below the earth’s surface, as well as under large bodies f water, from a few hundred feet below the surface to as deep a 25.000 feet into the earth’s interior. Sometimes crude oil is secured by drilling a hole into the earth, but more dry holes are drilled than those producing oil. Pressure at the source or pumping forces crude oil to the surface.
Crude oil well flow at varying rates, from ten to thousands of barrels per hour. Petroleum products vary greatly in physical appearance: thin, thick, transparent, or opaque. Their chemical composition is made up of only two elements: carbon and hydrogen, which form compounds called hydrocarbons. Other chemical elements found in union with the hydrocarbons are few and are classified as impurities. Trace elements are also found, but these are of such minute quantities that they are disregarded. The combination of carbon and hydrogen form many thousands of compounds which are possible because of the various positions and varied joining of these two atom in the hydrocarbon molecule.
The various petroleum products are refined from the crude oil by heating and condensing the vapors. These products are so-called light oils, such as gasoline, kerosene and distillate oil. The residue remaining after the light oils are distilled is known as heavy or residual fuel oil and I used mostly for burning under boilers. Additional complicated refining processes rearrange the chemical structure of the hydrocarbon to produce other products, some of which are used to upgrade and increase the octane rating of various types of gasoline.