Petroleum (1 Viewer)

[Essay Questions]

Hey guys wondering if you could clarify something. Is petroleum the exact same as crude oil, or does it just refer to the liquid fractions of crude oil?

 

[Queenroot]

The name Petroleum covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crude oils and petroleum products that are made up of refined crude oil. - Wiki

 

[QZP]

Crude oil is a mixture of liquid hydrocarbons naturally found in underground reservoirs. This is the 'rawest' term.

Petroleum is a broadly defined class of liquid hydrocarbon mixtures. It includes crude oil and petroleum products (refined crude oil).

Petroleum products are products obtained from the processing of crude oil. These products can have non-hydrocarbon additives.

 

[fatassmcfat]

It refers to bothish...petroleum consists of a billion different hydrocarbon chain lengths (like c1, c2, c5, c10) mixed together. When you put it into the fractional distillation it seperates them out, but technically the products are still petroleum (just a specific length)