refining crude oil

Chevron's Pascagoula Refinery can process approximately 369,000 barrels per day of crude oil - an amount equivalent to the size of a football field covered to a depth of 41 feet.

Chevron Pascagoula Refinery is primarily a fuels refinery, in that we mainly manufacture motor gasoline. Our other products include fuel oils such as Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), aviation gasoline, petroleum coke and sulfur.

The refinery’s specialty products include benzene and ethylbenzene, used in the manufacturing of a wide range of products, including automobile tires, sporting goods, nylon, and pharmaceuticals; propylene, used in the manufacture of plastics; and premium base oils, used in high performance lubricants, including motor oils for consumer and commercial use.

Refining crude oil into transportation products is a complex process involving many steps. The key steps include:

• Separation: Crude oil is separated into different parts based on the size of the molecules.
• Treatment: Using hydrogen and catalyst, natural impurities are removed from crude oil to meet California’s emissions standards, which are the toughest in the nation.
• Cracking: Large molecules of crude oil are broken into small constituent elements that make up different transportation fuels.