Oil processing
< Oil processing
Oil processing is a large part of Factorio. It was introduced in v0.9. Oil processing may refer to the researched technology, the recipe used in the Oil refinery, or the overall workings of oil.
Tutorials
Technologies
Oil processing allows the player to set up a basic facility to mine, process, and use oil. To be able to increase the usefulness of the created oil products, you may want to research Sulfur processing, as a prerequisite for the research of the Battery, which is used in many items later on, including the Science pack 3. Plastics are also useful, as the Plastic bar is an ingredient in the Advanced circuit, which is used often later on. Fluid handling allows you better control over your liquids, with items such as the Storage Tank and Small Pump. Advanced oil processing gives you a new recipe for use in the Oil refinery, allowing you to get more useful products from your Crude Oil. Finally, researching Flammables gives you access to the Flamethrower.
Recipes
There are various recipes that can be done regarding Oil processing. They are listed below.
After researching Oil processing: | |||
---|---|---|---|
Process | Input | Machine | Output |
Basic oil processing | |||
Solid fuel | |||
Solid fuel | |||
Solid fuel | |||
Lubricant | |||
After researching Advanced oil processing: | |||
Process | Input | Machine | Output |
Advanced oil processing | |||
Heavy oil cracking | |||
Light oil cracking | |||
After researching Fluid handling: | |||
Process | Input | Machine | Output |
Fill crude oil barrel | or | ||
Empty crude oil barrel | or | ||
After researching Sulfur processing: | |||
Process | Input | Machine | Output |
Sulfur | |||
Sulfuric Acid | |||
After researching Advanced electronics: | |||
Process | Input | Machine | Output |
Processing unit | or | ||
After researching Battery: | |||
Process | Input | Machine | Output |
Battery | |||
After researching Plastics: | |||
Process | Input | Machine | Output |
Plastics | |||
After researching Flammables and Flame thrower: | |||
Process | Input | Machine | Output |
Flamethrower ammo |
Mechanics & Usage
To extract, process and use oil and its connected products, research, as shown above, is needed.
Overview
Pumpjacks need to be placed on top of the middle of the oil well. Given electricity (90kW, upgradeable), Pumpjacks will produce a certain amount of Crude oil per second, shown on the right, at the bottom of the information panel. Over time this value will decrease down to a minimum of 0.1 oil/s, providing infinite oil at a very low rate.
All liquids can be transported by Pipes, only Crude oil can be filled into Barrels and moved with the Railway network or other vehicles.
The Crude Oil then needs to be refined in an Oil refinery. The Oil refinery also needs Power provided by an Electric network. It has a much higher demand, at 420kW, but it is also upgradeable. The oil refinery needs to have a recipe set (see above for available recipes). Once it is set, the inputs and outputs show what needs to be, and what will be supplied. You cannot move the locations of these, only rotate the entire machine. Make sure that the products have somewhere to go (preferably Storage Tanks), as the refinery will stop production of all products if one product output is full.
Now you have the three basic products. Heavy Oil, Light Oil and Petroleum Gas. Both Heavy Oil and Light Oil can be cracked to the next lower type in a Chemical plant (recipe above). This is useful if you've got lots of Light Oil, but are lacking in Petroleum Gas (A common problem).
From here, after some research, you can use the oil products to create various products. They are all listed above.
Items to handle liquids
Pumpjack | Pumpjacks mine the Crude Oil from the Oil wells, and let you move it by Pipe. |
Oil refinery | Refines Crude Oil into basic oil products (Heavy-/Light Oil and Petroleum Gas). |
Chemical plant | Like the Assembling machine, used to automate processing of liquids and crafting. |
Storage Tank | Stores up to 2500 units of any liquid. |
Small Pump | Allows you to pump liquids from one area to another. Used inline (Between pipes). |
Pump | Allows you to pump water up from a body of water. |
Assembling machine 2 Assembling machine 3 | Allows you to craft items using liquids, used mainly for Barrels. |
Pipe | Allows transporting of liquids from one location to another. |
Underground Pipe|Underground Pipe]] | [[A Pipe, but under the ground, acting similar to Underground belts. |