Petroleum BT - Energy Resources and Systems: Volume 1: Fundamentals and Non-Renewable Resources

Abstract

Petroleum dominates the world economy. No other commodity affects everyday life the way petroleum does. Although more than 70% of petroleum is used for transportation, it is an essential raw material for making a variety of products that we use in our everyday life. Petroleum is a complex chemical mixture and its trade and also processing depend on its physical and chemical properties. Crude petroleum pumped out from the underground reservoirs goes through a number of processing steps before the final products are obtained and sold to the public. The main objective of the processing is to maximize the yield of transportation fuels. Exploration, extraction from underground reservoirs, benchmarking and processing of crude petroleum are discussed in this chapter.