Oil & Gas : Petroleum refining

Welcome to this online course on petroleum refining.

This training course is designed to provide you with a complete understanding of the crude oil refining industry and breaks down for you all the major refining processes into easily digestible concepts using extensive graphics, process layouts and various manufacturing schemes.

You will first get a quick overview of the petroleum industry to put things into perspective before your journey begins.

Then you will discover the different types of crude oil, their composition and the chemical properties of their hydrocarbon components and how refiners separate these molecules using a process called distillation.

You will also learn the major conversion processes used to upgrade petroleum cuts into better quality blending components for the production of gasoline, diesel, heating oil and heavy fuel.

These processes include :

1. Isomerization

2. Alkylation

3. Catalytic reformers

4. Hydrotreaters

5. Fluid catalytic crackers

6. Hydrocrackers

7. Delayed cokers

For each of these conversion processes, you will learn :

• Operating principles

• Process flow diagram

• Operating conditions

• Associated yields

• Catalysts used

Asphalts and lubricating oils are also covered in this course.

You will learn how these products are made from crude oil and discover their associated manufacturing processes.

• Comprehend the basic differences between exploration, refining and petrochemicals
• Understand the basics of the various refining processes
• Learn what crude oils are made of and understand the chemical properties of their hydrocarbon components like paraffins, naphthenes, aromatics…
• Learn how the major refining processes work and interact with each other (distillation, isomerization, alkylation, catalytic reforming, hydrotreater, sulfur plant, fluid catalytic cracking, hydrocracking, delayed coking, asphalt/lube plant…)
• Understand how the main petroleum products are made (LPG, gasoline, kerosene, diesel fuel, heating oil, heavy fuel, asphalts, lubricants…)
• Appreciate that aromatics are important to the petrochemical industry even though refineries are trying to minimize these in gasoline due to their toxic properties
• Appreciate that olefinic and aromatic petrochemical precursors are specialty chemicals produced by the refining processes

• Students in chemical engineering, refining, petrochemicals…
• Newly-hired refinery or petrochemical plant personnel and current semi-technical personnel who require further training
• Engineers (chemical, petrochemical, petroleum, process…)
• Refinery operators and technicians
• Support personnel of an oil company including maintenance, logistics, supply chain, sales, marketing, quality…
• Other support staff who have an interest in increasing their understanding of petroleum refining
• Non-technical professionals assigned to positions in refineries
• Business development managers, corporate planning professionals and business analysts switching disciplines who are required to have a better understanding of this stimulating field
• Energy industry journalists and reporters
• Professional personnel such as legal, banking, insurance, finance dealing with oil supply, petrochemicals, refining and transportation
• Anyone seeking to broaden the sphere of his knowledge and discover the petrochemical industry

This training course includes downloadable resources in pdf format with unlimited access.

These documents contain everything you need to know about refining process schemes, layouts, crude oil characteristics and properties, petroleum products and much more…

To download the files, once you are enrolled in :

1. Go to the “Downloadable resources” section

2. Expand the section to have access to all the pdf files

3. Click on any file to open it. You can save it to view it later offline