Oil processing

Oil processing is a large part of Factorio. Oil processing may refer to the researched technology, the recipe used in the oil refinery, or the overall workings of oil.

Overview

In Factorio, when the player reaches the need for Science pack 3, they must set up oil processing. In order to do this, the player must research the following technologies:

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 (research)	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 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.
File:Flammables.png Flammables (research) 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
Basic oil processing	100 5		30 30 File:Petroleum-gas.png 40
File:Solid-fuel-from-heavy-oil.png Solid fuel	20 3		1
File:Solid-fuel-from-light-oil.png Solid fuel	10 3		1
File:Solid-fuel-from-petroleum-gas.png Solid fuel	File:Petroleum-gas.png 20 3		1
Lubricant	10 1		10
After researching File:Advanced-oil-processing-tech.png Advanced oil processing:
Process	Input	Machine	Output
Advanced oil processing	100 50 5		10 45 File:Petroleum-gas.png 55
File:Heavy-oil-cracking.png Heavy oil cracking	40 30 3		30
File:Light-oil-cracking.png Light oil cracking	30 30 3		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 1 250 1	or	1
File:Empty-crude-oil-barrel.png Empty crude oil barrel	1 1	or	File:Barrel-empty.png 1 250
After researching Sulfur processing:
Process	Input	Machine	Output
Sulfur	30 File:Petroleum-gas.png 30 1		2
File:Sulfuric-acid.png Sulfuric acid	1 5 100 1		File:Sulfuric-acid.png 50
After researching File:Explosives-research.png Explosives:
Process	Input	Machine	Output
Explosives	1 1 10 5		1
After researching File:Advanced-electronics-research.png Advanced electronics:
Process	Input	Machine	Output
Processing unit	20 2 File:Sulfuric-acid.png 5 15	or	1
After researching File:Battery-research.png Battery:
Process	Input	Machine	Output
Battery	1 1 File:Sulfuric-acid.png 20 5		1
After researching File:Plastics.png Plastics (research):
Process	Input	Machine	Output
Plastics (research)	1 File:Petroleum-gas.png 20 1		2
After researching File:Flammables.png Flammables (research) and File:Flame-thrower.png Flame thrower:
Process	Input	Machine	Output
Flamethrower ammo	5 25 25 3		1
After researching Coal liquefaction:
Process	Input	Machine	Output
Coal liquefaction	10 25 50 5		35 15 File:Petroleum-gas.png 20

Setting up oil processing

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 2 oil/s, so a pumpjack will provide unlimited oil but eventually at a very low rate.

Crude Oil must be refined in an Oil refinery. 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 change 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.

Once the process finishes in the oil refinery, the player will be left with 3 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 the player has lots of Light oil but is lacking in Petroleum gas (a common problem).

From here, after some research, the player 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 Express transport belts and Electric engines, and the only other use of Heavy oil is flamethrower ammo, 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 near your Oil refineries, so lubricant doesn't need to be sent as far.

• Solid fuel
  • Solid fuel is most efficient when created from Light oil. If the player has too much heavy oil, cracking it to light oil then making it into fuel is more efficient than making heavy oil into fuel directly.
  • The circuit network can be used to easily control how much fluid gets used for each recipe, to ensure that the player always has enough.

Transporting fluids

There are many ways to move fluids in Factorio, they are listed below:

• Pipes
• Fluid wagons
• Loading the fluids into Barrels and transporting them by Railways or the Logistic network

Optimal Ratios

The optimal ratio is the ratio of production that ensures no waste of time or materials.

Produce Petroleum gas

For producing petroleum gas, when you apply 1 Oil Refinery to the optimal Advanced oil processing ratio 25:3:21 (advanced oil processing : heavy cracking : light cracking), you get 1:0.12:0.84. Round that up to get 1:0.2:1, which means:

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

Different ratios are close enough 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, however 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 (In other words, no 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.

The math for various module configurations

Oil refinery
	No modules		Prod 3 + 8x2 spd beacon		Prod 3 + 14/12x2 spd beacon
Raw oil consumption	100		100		100
Water consumption	50		50		50
Crafting speed	5	sec/final item	5	sec/final item	5	sec/final item
Heavy output	10		10		10
Light output	45		45		45
Petro output	55		55		55
Raw machine crafting speed	1	crafts/sec	1	crafts/sec	1	crafts/sec
Craft boost	100%		505%		805%
Output bonus	100%	Final items	130%	Final items	130%	Final items
Total Raw oil consumption	20	per sec	101	per sec	161	per sec
Total Water consumption	10	per sec	50,5	per sec	80,5	per sec
Total Heavy output	2	per sec	13,13	per sec	20,93	per sec
Total Light output	9	per sec	59,085	per sec	94,185	per sec
Total Petro output	11	per sec	72,215	per sec	115,115	per sec
Heavy to light cracking
Heavy consumption	40		40		40
Water consumption	30		30		30
Crafting speed	3	sec/final item	3	sec/final item	3	sec/final item
Light output	30		30		30
Raw machine crafting speed	1,25	crafts/sec	1,25	crafts/sec	1,25	crafts/sec
Craft boost	100%		455%		655%
Output bonus	100%	Final items	130%	Final items	130%	Final items
Total Heavy consumption	16,66666667	per sec	75,83333333	per sec	109,1666667	per sec
Total Water consumption	12,5	per sec	56,875	per sec	81,875	per sec
Total Light output	12,5	per sec	73,9375	per sec	106,4375	per sec
Heavy to light cracking
Light consumption	30		30		30
Water consumption	30		30		30
Crafting speed	3	sec/final item	3	sec/final item	3	sec/final item
Petro output	20		20		20
Raw machine crafting speed	1,25	crafts/sec	1,25	crafts/sec	1,25	crafts/sec
Craft boost	100%		455%		655%
Output bonus	100%	Final items	130%	Final items	130%	Final items
Total Light consumption	12,5	per sec	56,875	per sec	81,875	per sec
Total Water consumption	12,5	per sec	56,875	per sec	81,875	per sec
Total Petro output	8,333333333	per sec	49,29166667	per sec	70,95833333	per sec
Ratio
Heavy cracking	0,12		0,173142857		0,191725191
Light cracking	0,84		1,263942857		1,399593893
Output	18	per sec	134,51685	per sec	214,42785	per sec

See also

• Liquids
• Fluid system
• Crude oil
• Barrel