Oil Processing

Oil Processing is a huge part of progression in GregTech 5, it includes obtaining oil, distilling it, performing various chemical recipes with oil products and finally creating different plastics used in higher tier machinery in the mod.

The following article provides detailed information on every stage of Oil Processing as well as general recommendations and setup suggestions on each stage.

Stage 1: Obtaining Oil

In order to process oil, it requires first to be obtained. There are many different ways to obtain oil but the fastest and the most efficient is to use Oil Drilling Rig.Depending on the current oil deposits in each chunk the production rate significantly varies. The amount of oil obtained also decreases as the oil deposits in the chunk deplete.

However, using Oil Drilling Rig requires some progress done and therefore not possible in early game. In early game the best oil source is the centrifugation of Oilsands Ore commonly found in the world.

There are 5 different types of fluid which can be obtained at this stage and used in Oil Processing later:

Oil - the most common type of oil, it can be obtained by different means not counting Oil Drilling Rig usage.
Raw Oil - slightly less common, 2 times less efficient than normal oil.
Heavy Oil - with greater amount of heavy fractions, can also be obtained by different means not counting Oil Drilling Rig usage.
Light Oil - with greater amount of light fractions.
Natural Gas - can also be obtained by Oil Drilling Rig, cannot be distilled straight away, needs to be processed starting from Stage 3.

Stage 2: Primary Distillation

On this stage each of the first 4 fluids have to be distilled in order to split them in fractions. At first, the player has to perform the distillation in Distillery, and this will only allow to obtain 1 of 4 possible outputs depending on the Programmed Circuit.

After some time with more progressing the player is able to construct Distillation Tower, and performing the same distillation in this multiblock will give all 4 of the resulting fluids. It is highly recommended to aim towards the Distillation Tower construction as soon as possible, as this greately boosts the efficiency of Oil Processing.

The fluids obtained at this stage are:

Sulfuric Gas - The lighest fraction, fully equivalent to Natural Gas from the first stage. Its presence in the 4 former fluids is: 41%, 41%, 16%, 80% respectively.
Sulfuric Naphtha - The heavier gas. Its presence in the 4 former fluids is: 14%, 14%, 4%, 10% respectively.
Sulfuric Light Fuel - The lighter liquid. Its presence in the 4 former fluids is: 34%, 34%, 12%, 7% respectively.
Sulfuric Heavy Fuel - The heaviest fraction. Its presence in the 4 former fluids is: 11%, 11%, 68%, 3% respectively.

This information can also be organized in the following wikitable, which is sortable by every column. Every output fluid is calculated based on 1000 mb of input fluid:

Natural Fluid	Sulfuric Gas	Sulfuric Naphtha	Sulfuric Light Fuel	Sulfuric Heavy Fuel
Oil	1200 mb	400 mb	1000 mb	300 mb
Raw Oil	600 mb	200 mb	500 mb	150 mb
Heavy Oil	600 mb	150 mb	450 mb	2500 mb
Light Oil	1600 mb	200 mb	133 mb	67 mb

Note that processing the fluid in Distillery does not yield more resulting fluid of the desired type than in Distillation Tower.

Stage 3: Desulfurization

In the previous stages these 5 fluids were obtained:

All these fluids require desulfurization before further processing. This stage deals with this.

Desulfurization is done in Chemical Reactor or in Large Chemical Reactor. At first only the former machine is available. Processing the fluids in it requires Hydrogen Cell which is mixed with fluid and takes sulfur, turning into Hydrogen Sulfide Cell. Another option is to put fuel in cells and to pump Hydrogen directly as gas. The fluid is then desulfurized.

Using Large Chemical Reactor does not increase efficiency or output amount, but it has 2 significant advantages:

Pure fluids are used in recipes, not cells. This allows to skip Fluid Canner and directly pump fluids in and out. Hydrogen turns into Hydrogen Sulfide.
One Large Chemical Reactor can be used to automate desulfurization of all 5 fluids. For this 6 Input Hatches need to be placed, one for each of the sulfuric fluids and one for hydrogen. As soon as the amount of any sulfuric fluid reaches the amount stated in the recipe, this amount is immediately processed and resulting fluids appear in 2 Output Hatches (provided that there is space for them). Screwdriver or Electric Screwdriver can be used on Input Hatch or Input Hatch with fluid to lock it to this specific fluid, making it not accept any other fluid.

After this stage is completed, these fluids are obtained with 1:1 conversion rate:

Stage 4: Primary Oil Cracking

After the 4 desulfurized fluids are obtained, they have to be distilled into hydrocarbons. But as they are already distilled products of oil, this requires additional cracking before distillation in order to soften the fluid structure a bit, so it is able to be broken into fractions. This stage deals with cracking. Note that specific hydrocarbons can be obtained from fuels directly with Distillery without the requirement of cracking. So the cracking is only required to process the cracked fuels to their full potential and to obtain the full variety of hydrocarbons.

There are 2 types of cracking the player can perform.

The first is Hydro-Cracking. As the name implies it requires Hydrogen. The fluids cracked this way will only give the output fluids lighter than the input fluid. The variety of resulting fluids is therefore decreased, the obtained fluid amount varies from 2 for Hydro-Cracked Refinery Gas to 6 from Hydro-Cracked Heavy Fuel. None of the fluid is lost as solid items, but the decreased variety makes this method not preferrable for advanced chemical setups, as it requires additional processing before being able to create plastics. However, this method of cracking works best for obtaining fuels.

The second is Steam-Cracking. As the name implies it requires Steam. It is more severe cracking variant compared to the former one. The fluids cracked this way are easily broken into many different fractions, perfect for plastic production, but not as efficient as some of the fluid is lost as Solid Carbon. This is not a big loss compared to overall output, therefore this method is more often used by players, but it requires more advanced setups to work with. It is also not preferrable to create good fuels, for that reason Hydro-Cracking is better.

Refinery Gas can be distilled straight away, it does not require to be cracked, but the outputs of such distillation are somewhere inbetween two types of cracking. This makes this recipe not preferrable in any of the setups as there always is a better alternative in one of the cracked variants for every situation.

All the cracking has to be done in Oil Cracking Unit with the usage of Hydrogen or Steam for the chosen method. One Oil Cracking Unit can be used to crack all fluids, so it is not required to build several of these multiblocks for automation.

Input Fluid	Hydro-Cracking	Steam-Cracking
Refinery Gas	Hydro-Cracked Refinery Gas	Steam-Cracked Refinery Gas
Naphtha	Hydro-Cracked Naphtha	Steam-Cracked Naphtha
Light Fuel	Hydro-Cracked Light Fuel	Steam-Cracked Light Fuel
Heavy Fuel	Hydro-Cracked Heavy Fuel	Steam-Cracked Heavy Fuel

Stage 5: Secondary Distillation

Secondary distillation is required to obtain the useable hydrocarbons from the cracked intermediary materials. Only 1 oil product - Refinery Gas - can be distilled without cracking, but it is not preferrable. Like in stage 2, this distillation can be performed in Distillery and in Distillation Tower, and once again the second method is a lot more worthy, as it allows to obtain all the hydrocarbons, not just one.

Below is the spreadsheet with the percentage gain of each of the secondary distillation outputs from each of the fluids which can be distilled. Each distilled input fluid is taken in the amount of 1000 mb. The table can be sorted.

Output	Refinery Gas	Hydro-Cracked Refinery Gas	Hydro-Cracked Naphtha	Hydro-Cracked Light Fuel	Hydro-Cracked Heavy Fuel	Steam-Cracked Refinery Gas	Steam-Cracked Naphtha	Steam-Cracked Light Fuel	Steam-Cracked Heavy Fuel
Helium	20 mb	20 mb	0 mb	0 mb	0 mb	20 mb	0 mb	0 mb	0 mb
Methane	750 mb	1500 mb	750 mb	200 mb	75 mb	750 mb	600 mb	450 mb	300 mb
Ethylene	0 mb	0 mb	0 mb	0 mb	0 mb	100 mb	600 mb	450 mb	300 mb
Ethane	100 mb	0 mb	750 mb	200 mb	75 mb	0 mb	0 mb	0 mb	0 mb
Propene	0 mb	0 mb	0 mb	0 mb	0 mb	70 mb	600 mb	450 mb	300 mb
Propane	70 mb	0 mb	750 mb	400 mb	100 mb	0 mb	0 mb	0 mb	0 mb
Butadiene	0 mb	0 mb	0 mb	0 mb	0 mb	60 mb	400 mb	300 mb	200 mb
Butane	60 mb	0 mb	750 mb	400 mb	100 mb	0 mb	0 mb	0 mb	0 mb
Benzene	0 mb	0 mb	0 mb	0 mb	0 mb	0 mb	400 mb	300 mb	200 mb
Toluene	0 mb	0 mb	0 mb	0 mb	0 mb	0 mb	200 mb	150 mb	100 mb
Octane	0 mb	0 mb	0 mb	100 mb	0 mb	0 mb	0 mb	0 mb	0 mb
Naphtha	0 mb	0 mb	0 mb	800 mb	400 mb	0 mb	0 mb	100 mb	100 mb
Light Fuel	0 mb	0 mb	0 mb	0 mb	800 mb	0 mb	100 mb	0 mb	100 mb
Heavy Fuel	0 mb	0 mb	0 mb	0 mb	0 mb	0 mb	100 mb	100 mb	0 mb
Carbon	0	0	0	0	0	1	1	1	1

Naphtha, Light Fuel and Heavy Fuel obtained can be recursively cracked and distilled to further be processed again.

Stage 6: Hydrocarbons Preparation for Plastics

After the last stage the following hydrocarbons can be obtained, they can all be used as fuel, however some of them can be used to create plastics, and some cannot.

Methane - useful.
Ethylene - useful.
Ethane - not useful.
Propene - useful.
Propane - not useful.
Butadiene - useful.
Butane - not useful.
Benzene - useful.
Toluene - useful.
Octane - useful.

This stage focuses on not useful hydrocarbons and how to turn them into useful ones.

Note that not useful hydrocarbons are only obtained from Hydro-Cracked oil fractions. Steam-Cracking does only give useful hydrocarbons, therefore it is a desired variant as it saves resources spent on hydrocarbon conversion.

Lets focus on not useful hydrocarbons and how to process them. They can be dehydrogenated in Chemical Reactor or Large Chemical Reactor into similar hydrocarbon with negligible loss. Each can be Hydro-Cracked and further distilled, but this gives not useful hydrocarbons once again (apart from Methane). Or they can be Steam-Cracked into useful hydrocarbons.

The following wikitable contains the resulting outputs of each of not useful hydrocarbons processed each way from 1000 mb of input hydrocarbon.

Hydrocarbon	Dehydrogenation	Hydro-Cracking	Steam-Cracking
Ethane	750 mb Ethylene 250 mb Hydrogen	2000 mb Methane	500 mb Methane 1000 mb Ethylene 1 Carbon
Propane	800 mb Propene 200 mb Hydrogen	1000 mb Methane 1000 mb Ethane	500 mb Methane 1000 mb Ethylene 500 mb Propene 1 Carbon
Butane	857 mb Butene 143 mb Hydrogen	1000 mb Methane 1000 mb Ethane 1000 mb Propane	500 mb Methane 1000 mb Ethylene 1000 mb Propene 500 mb Butadiene 1 Carbon

Stage 7: Oil Processing Benefits

After all the useful hydrocarbons are obtained, they can be used to create great fuel and plastics. Below is each of the useful hydrocarbons and what they can be used for. Note that default easy chemistry is used to create these relations. When hard mode chemistry is enabled, this stage becomes significantly harder, and has to be broken into different other stages. The detailed information about this chemistry mode is available Petrochemistry page.

Methane -> Polydimethylsiloxane Pulp for Silicone Rubber.
Ethylene -> Polyethylene, Vinyl Chloride for Polyvinyl Chloride, Tetrafluoroethylene for Polytetrafluoroethylene, Isoprene for Rubber, Glue.
Propene -> Isoprene for Rubber and Epoxy Resin.
Butene -> Ethyl Tert-Butyl Ether for High Octane Gasoline.
Butadiene -> Styrene-Butadiene Rubber.
Benzene -> Polyphenylene Sulfide, Epoxy Resin, Styrene for Polystyrene.
Toluene -> Gasoline and High Octane Gasoline, Gelled Toluene for TNT and Industrial TNT.
Octane -> High Octane Gasoline.

If the player runs low on a certain hydrocarbon, there are several conversion recipes, which allow for 1:1 conversion between Ethylene and Propene and between Ethylene and Butene.