Gasoline, or petrol is a clear petroleum-derived flammable liquid that is used primarily as a fuel in most spark-ignited internal combustion engines. It consists mostly of organic compounds obtained by the fractional distillation of petroleum, enhanced with a variety of additives. On average, a 160-liter (42-U.S.-gallon) barrel of crude oil can yield up to about 72 liters of gasoline after processing in an oil refinery, depending on the crude oil assay and on what other refined products are also extracted. The characteristic of a particular gasoline blend to resist igniting too early is measured by its octane rating, which is produced in several grades. Once widely used to increase octane rating, tetraethyl lead and other lead compounds are no longer used in most areas. Other chemicals are frequently added to gasoline to improve chemical stability and performance characteristics, control corrosiveness and provide fuel system cleaning. Gasoline may contain oxygen-containing chemicals such as ethanol, MTBE or ETBE to improve combustion.
Contango is a situation where the futures price of a commodity is higher than the expected spot price of the contract at maturity. In a contango situation, arbitrageurs or speculators are "willing to pay more [now] for a commodity [to be received] at some point in the future than the actual expected price of the commodity [at that future point]. This may be due to people's desire to pay a premium to have the commodity in the future rather than paying the costs of storage and carry costs of buying the commodity today." On the other side of the trade, hedgers are happy to sell futures contracts and accept the higher-than-expected returns. A contango market is also known as a normal market, or carrying-cost market.
An oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial process plant where crude oil is transformed and refined into more useful products such as petroleum naphtha, gasoline, diesel fuel, asphalt base, heating oil, kerosene, liquefied petroleum gas, jet fuel and fuel oils. Petrochemicals feed stock like ethylene and propylene can also be produced directly by cracking crude oil without the need of using refined products of crude oil such as naphtha.
The New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) is a commodity futures exchange owned and operated by CME Group of Chicago. NYMEX is located at One North End Avenue in Brookfield Place in the Battery Park City section of Manhattan, New York City.
West Texas Intermediate (WTI) can refer to a grade or a mix of crude oil, and/or the spot price, the futures price, or the assessed price for that oil; colloquially WTI usually refers to the price of the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) WTI Crude Oil futures contract or the contract itself. The WTI oil grade is also known as Texas light sweet, although oil produced from any location can be considered WTI if the oil meets required qualifications. Spot and futures prices of WTI are used as a benchmark in oil pricing. This grade is described as light crude oil because of its relatively low density, and sweet because of its low sulfur content.
Brent Crude may refer to any or all of the components of the Brent Complex, a physically and financially traded oil market based around the North Sea of Northwest Europe; colloquially, Brent Crude usually refers to the price of the ICE Brent Crude Oil futures contract or the contract itself. The original Brent Crude referred to a trading classification of sweet light crude oil first extracted from the Brent oil field in the North Sea in 1976. As production from the Brent oilfield declined over time, crude oil blends from other oil fields have been added to the trade classification. The current Brent blend consists of crude oil produced from the Brent, Forties, Oseberg, Ekofisk, and Troll oil fields.
A visbreaker is a processing unit in an oil refinery whose purpose is to reduce the quantity of residual oil produced in the distillation of crude oil and to increase the yield of more valuable middle distillates by the refinery. A visbreaker thermally cracks large hydrocarbon molecules in the oil by heating in a furnace to reduce its viscosity and to produce small quantities of light hydrocarbons. The process name of "visbreaker" refers to the fact that the process reduces the viscosity of the residual oil. The process is non-catalytic.
Petroleum Company of Trinidad and Tobago Limited (Petrotrin) was a state-owned oil company in Trinidad and Tobago. Its principal activities were the exploration, development and production of hydrocarbons in addition to the manufacturing and marketing of petroleum products.
Singapore Petroleum Company Limited, in short SPC, is a subsidiary of Chinese state-owned company PetroChina. It is involved in the exploration and production of petroleum, refining, trading and petroleum product distribution.
Light crude oil is liquid petroleum that has a low density and flows freely at room temperature. It has a low viscosity, low specific gravity and high API gravity due to the presence of a high proportion of light hydrocarbon fractions. It generally has a low wax content. Light crude oil receives a higher price than heavy crude oil on commodity markets because it produces a higher percentage of gasoline and diesel fuel when converted into products by an oil refinery.
An energy derivative is a derivative contract based on an underlying energy asset, such as natural gas, crude oil, or electricity. Energy derivatives are exotic derivatives and include exchange-traded contracts such as futures and options, and over-the-counter derivatives such as forwards, swaps and options. Major players in the energy derivative markets include major trading houses, oil companies, utilities, and financial institutions.
The price of oil, or the oil price, generally refers to the spot price of a barrel of benchmark crude oil—a reference price for buyers and sellers of crude oil such as West Texas Intermediate (WTI), Brent Crude, Dubai Crude, OPEC Reference Basket, Tapis crude, Bonny Light, Urals oil, Isthmus and Western Canadian Select (WCS). There is a differential in the price of a barrel of oil based on its grade—determined by factors such as its specific gravity or API gravity and its sulfur content—and its location—for example, its proximity to tidewater and refineries. Heavier, sour crude oils lacking in tidewater access—such as Western Canadian Select—are less expensive than lighter, sweeter oil—such as WTI.
A benchmark crude or marker crude is a crude oil that serves as a reference price for buyers and sellers of crude oil. There are three primary benchmarks, West Texas Intermediate (WTI), Brent Blend, and Dubai Crude. Other well-known blends include the OPEC Reference Basket used by OPEC, Tapis Crude which is traded in Singapore, Bonny Light used in Nigeria, Urals oil used in Russia and Mexico's Isthmus. Energy Intelligence Group publishes a handbook which identified 195 major crude streams or blends in its 2011 edition.
Houston Refining, formerly known as Lyondell-Citgo Refining, is a 270,200-barrel-per-day (42,960 m3/d) refinery located on the Texas Gulf Coast in Houston, covering nearly 700 acres (2.8 km2) along the Houston Ship Channel.
The Dubai Mercantile Exchange (DME) is a commodity exchange based in Dubai currently listing its flagship futures contract, DME Oman Crude Oil Futures Contract (OQD). Launched in 2007, the DME aims to become the crude oil pricing benchmark for the Asian market with its Oman Crude Oil contract, like the Intercontinental Exchange’s (ICE) North Sea Brent is to Europe and the New York Mercantile Exchange’s (NYMEX) West Texas Intermediate is to North America.
Petroleum refining processes are the chemical engineering processes and other facilities used in petroleum refineries to transform crude oil into useful products such as liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), gasoline or petrol, kerosene, jet fuel, diesel oil and fuel oils.
Launched by the Dubai Mercantile Exchange (DME) on 1 June 2007, the DME Oman Crude Oil Futures Contract (OQD) is the Asian crude oil pricing benchmark. The contract is traded on the CME Group’s electronic platform CME Globex, and cleared through CME Clearport.
The Ferndale Refinery, owned by Phillips 66, has 101,000 b/d capacity, making it, as of 2015, the 64th largest in the United States, and produces predominantly transportation fuels consumed in local markets. The plant is located in the Cherry Point Industrial Zone, west of Ferndale, WA. Its secondary processing facilities include a fluid catalytic cracker, an alkylation unit, hydotreating units and a naphtha reformer. The plant follows a 10-5-3-2 crack spread, meaning that for 10 barrels of crude feedstock the refinery produces 5 barrels of gasoline, 3 barrels of distillate and 2 barrels of fuel oil.
Petroleum refining in the United States in 2013 produced 18.9 million barrels per day of refined petroleum products, more than any other country. Although the US was the world's largest net importer of refined petroleum products as recently as 2008, the US became a net exporter in 2010, and in 2014 was the largest exporter and the largest net exporter of refined petroleum. As of January 2019, there were 135 operating refineries in the US, distributed among 30 states.
The Saint-Petersburg International Mercantile Exchange (SPIMEX) is a Russian commodity exchange. The offices of SPIMEX are located in Moscow, Saint Petersburg and Irkutsk. SPIMEX was incorporated in 2008.
