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.

The values shown here are accurate for version 0.15. In 0.14, anything that produces, consumes, or stores any fluid does so at 1/10th of the quantities listed here. Solid items and ratios are unaffected; this is essentially just a cosmetic change of the displayed units.

Beginner

Tutorial

• Oil Tutorial, http://youtu.be/uL1eLmOSftw

Technologies

Technology	Description
File:Oil-gathering.png Oil processing	Allows the player to set up a basic facility to mine, process, and use oil.
Sulfur processing	A prerequisite for the research of the Battery, which is used in a handful items later on, including the Science pack 3.
File:Plastics.png Plastics	The Plastic bar is an ingredient in the Advanced circuit, which is used often later on.
File:Fluid-handling.png Fluid handling	Allows better control over your liquids, with the Storage Tank and Small Pump.
File:Advanced-oil-processing-tech.png 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.
Coal liquefaction	Gives you a refinery recipe to turn excess coal into oil products. Introduced in version 0.15.0.
File:Flammables.png Flammables File:Flame-thrower.png Flame thrower	Gives you access to the Flamethrower and Flamethrower ammo

Recipes

There are various recipes that can be done regarding Oil processing. They are listed below.

After researching File:Oil-gathering.png Oil processing:
Process	Input	Machine	Output
File:Basic-oil-processing.png Basic oil processing	File:Crude-oil.png 100 5	File:Oil-refinery.png	File:Heavy-oil.png 30 File:Light-oil.png 30 File:Petroleum-gas.png 40
File:Solid-fuel-from-heavy-oil.png Solid fuel	File:Heavy-oil.png 20 3	File:Chemical-plant.png	File:Solid-fuel.png 1
File:Solid-fuel-from-light-oil.png Solid fuel	File:Light-oil.png 10 3	File:Chemical-plant.png	File:Solid-fuel.png 1
File:Solid-fuel-from-petroleum-gas.png Solid fuel	File:Petroleum-gas.png 20 3	File:Chemical-plant.png	File:Solid-fuel.png 1
Lubricant	File:Heavy-oil.png 10 1	File:Chemical-plant.png	10
After researching File:Advanced-oil-processing-tech.png Advanced oil processing:
Process	Input	Machine	Output
File:Advanced-oil-processing.png Advanced oil processing	File:Crude-oil.png 100 50 5	File:Oil-refinery.png	File:Heavy-oil.png 10 File:Light-oil.png 45 File:Petroleum-gas.png 55
File:Heavy-oil-cracking.png Heavy oil cracking	File:Heavy-oil.png 40 30 3	File:Chemical-plant.png	File:Light-oil.png 30
File:Light-oil-cracking.png Light oil cracking	File:Light-oil.png 30 30 3	File:Chemical-plant.png	File:Petroleum-gas.png 20
After researching File:Fluid-handling.png Fluid handling:
Process	Input	Machine	Output
File:Fill-crude-oil-barrel.png Fill crude oil barrel	File:Barrel-empty.png 1 File:Crude-oil.png 250 1	File:Assembling-machine-2.png or File:Assembling-machine-3.png	1
File:Empty-crude-oil-barrel.png Empty crude oil barrel	1 1	File:Assembling-machine-2.png or File:Assembling-machine-3.png	File:Barrel-empty.png 1 File:Crude-oil.png 250
After researching Sulfur processing:
Process	Input	Machine	Output
Sulfur	30 File:Petroleum-gas.png 30 1	File:Chemical-plant.png	2
File:Sulfuric-acid.png Sulfuric Acid	File:Iron-plate.png 1 5 100 1	File:Chemical-plant.png	File:Sulfuric-acid.png 50
After researching File:Advanced-electronics-research.png Advanced electronics:
Process	Input	Machine	Output
File:Processing-unit.png Processing unit	File:Electronic-circuit.png 20 File:Advanced-circuit.png 2 File:Sulfuric-acid.png 5 15	File:Assembling-machine-2.png or File:Assembling-machine-3.png	File:Processing-unit.png 1
After researching File:Battery-research.png Battery:
Process	Input	Machine	Output
Battery	File:Iron-plate.png 1 File:Copper-plate.png 1 File:Sulfuric-acid.png 20 5	File:Chemical-plant.png	1
After researching File:Plastics.png Plastics:
Process	Input	Machine	Output
File:Plastic-bar.png Plastics	1 File:Petroleum-gas.png 30 1	File:Chemical-plant.png	File:Plastic-bar.png 2
After researching File:Flammables.png Flammables and File:Flame-thrower.png Flame thrower:
Process	Input	Machine	Output
File:Flame-thrower-ammo.png Flamethrower ammo	File:Iron-plate.png 5 File:Heavy-oil.png 25 File:Light-oil.png 25 3	File:Chemical-plant.png	File:Flame-thrower-ammo.png 1
After researching Coal liquefaction, added in 0.15.0:
Process	Input	Machine	Output
Coal liquefaction	10 File:Heavy-oil.png 25 50 5	File:Oil-refinery.png	File:Heavy-oil.png 35 File:Light-oil.png 15 File:Petroleum-gas.png 20

Mechanics & Usage

To extract, process and use oil and its connected products, research, as shown above, is needed.

Overview

File:Example-Oil-Refining.png

Crude oil being drilled and refined.

File:Example-Oil-Cracking.png

Oil being cracked into lower forms.

File:Example-Oil-Usage.png

Oil being used to create plastic and batteries.

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.

Tips

• Lubricant
  • If you run your Heavy Oil pipe from the refineries past a Lubricant-making Chemical Plant before sending it to the cracking Chemical Plants, you can be sure that the Lubricant production will have priority over cracking.
  • Most games will only ever need one lubricant-producing Chemical Plant and one Storage Tank for the lubricant.
  • Since Lubricant is only used for blue belts and electric engines, and the only other use of Heavy Oil is flamethrower ammo (production of which is either best placed in your oil refinery or elided entirely) and cracking into Light Oil (the Heavy Oil to Solid fuel production ratio is terrible compared to cracking it first), you may want to consider placing your production of robots and belt assembly nearby your oil refineries, so lubricant doesn't need to be sent as far.

Items to handle fluids

Pumpjack	Pumpjacks mine the Crude Oil from the oil fields, and let you move it by Pipe.
File:Oil-refinery.png Oil refinery	Refines Crude Oil into basic oil products (Heavy/Light Oil and Petroleum Gas).
File:Chemical-plant.png Chemical plant	Like the Assembling machine, used to automate processing of liquids and crafting.
File:Storage-tank.png Storage Tank	Stores up to 25000 units of any liquid.
File:Small-pump.png Pump	Allows you to pump liquids from one area to another. Used inline (between pipes). Also used to pump fluids into fluid wagons.
File:Offshore-pump.png Offshore pump	Allows you to pump water up from a body of water.
File:Assembling-machine-2.png Assembling machine 2 File:Assembling-machine-3.png Assembling machine 3	Allows you to craft items using liquids, used mainly for Barrels.
Pipe	Allows transporting of liquids from one location to another.
File:Pipe-to-ground.png Pipe to ground	A Pipe, but under the ground, acting similar to Underground belts.
Boiler	Transforms water into 165°C steam.
Heat exchanger	Transforms water into 500°C steam.
File:Steam-engine.png Steam engine	Consumes steam to produce electricity.
Steam turbine	Consumes steam to produce electricity.
Fluid wagon	Carries up to 75000 units of liquid by rail, in three tanks of 25000 each.

Advanced

Optimal ratio to produce petroleum gas

The optimal ratio is the ratio of buildings in which they can all work without jamming or having inactive superfluous. For example, when you apply 1 Oil Refinery to the optimal Advanced oil processing ratio [25 : 3 : 21], you get [1 : 0.12 : 0.84]. Round that up to get [1 : 1 : 1], which means:

• 1 Oil Refinery on Advanced oil processing
• 1 Chemical plant on Heavy oil cracking
• 1 Chemical plants on Light oil cracking

Different ratios are close enough to the perfection such as [8 : 1 : 7].

The setup above will not jam, but it will have temporarily inactive buildings. If you round down, it will no longer have inactive buildings, but it will jam (over time).

This can be sped up with modules, but to prevent jams or inactive buildings, it is recommended to speed everything up evenly. When slowing down (by using Productivity modules) you are better off experimenting on altering the ratio or the speed on certain buildings, since these ratios are only mathematically correct if all the buildings have the same speed, and have 100% productivity (so no added bonuses).

Calculating the optimal ratios is relatively challenging, since not all of the durations of the processes are the same (the crafting speed of a chemical plant is 1.25, but the refinery's is 1.0). If this were not taken in account, it will lead to (temporarily) inactive buildings, which is not optimal.

Basic oil processing

Ratio	Building	Process	Recipe
25	File:Oil-refinery.png Oil refinery	File:Basic-oil-processing.png Basic oil processing	5 File:Crude-oil.png 100 → File:Heavy-oil.png 30 File:Light-oil.png 30 File:Petroleum-gas.png 40
9	File:Chemical-plant.png Chemical plant	File:Heavy-oil-cracking.png Heavy oil cracking	3 30 File:Heavy-oil.png 40 → File:Light-oil.png 30
21	File:Chemical-plant.png Chemical plant	File:Light-oil-cracking.png Light oil cracking	3 30 File:Light-oil.png 30 → File:Petroleum-gas.png 20

Buildings	Input/s	Output/s
File:Oil-refinery.png 25 File:Chemical-plant.png 30	825 File:Crude-oil.png 500	File:Petroleum-gas.png 375

Advanced oil processing

Ratio	Building	Process	Recipe
25	File:Oil-refinery.png Oil refinery	File:Advanced-oil-processing.png Advanced oil processing	5 50 File:Crude-oil.png 100 → File:Heavy-oil.png 10 File:Light-oil.png 45 File:Petroleum-gas.png 55
3	File:Chemical-plant.png Chemical plant	File:Heavy-oil-cracking.png Heavy oil cracking	3 30 File:Heavy-oil.png 40 → File:Light-oil.png 30
21	File:Chemical-plant.png Chemical plant	File:Light-oil-cracking.png Light oil cracking	3 30 File:Light-oil.png 30 → File:Petroleum-gas.png 20

Buildings	Input/s	Output/s
File:Oil-refinery.png 25 File:Chemical-plant.png 24	650 File:Crude-oil.png 500	File:Petroleum-gas.png 450

Crude oil transport

File:Pumping station.jpg

Autonomus installation for manual pickup of Crude oil barrels.

Since oil fields practically can deplete, new sources will be demanded. There are many different ways to overcome this problem:

• Pipes/Belts
• Manual pick-up
• Trains
• Robots (Troublesome over long distances)

See also

• Liquids
• Oil Production: What is more efficient?
• What to do with oil?
• Dump valve/Open pipe?
• I did the Math on Oil Production