Oil, crude oil. Distillation columns, heat exchangers. Fuels and synthetic products.

Oil refineries refine crude oil into fossil fuels and compounds for different synthetic products. Depending on the temperature, it is possible to create different components by heating crude oil in special distillation columns. The lighter elements (fractions) can be extracted from the top of the column, whereas the heavier fractions can be drained from the bottom. The different temperatures that are required for further processing demand many heat exchangers. Certain processes have to be cooled, others heated, and this with the least amount of energy loss.