Table of Contents

• Preface
• The evolution of petroleum refining
• From the oil patch to the refinery
• Crude oil characteristics
• Distilling
• Vacuum flashing
• The chemistry of petroleum
• Refinery gas plants
• Cat cracking
• Alkylation
• Cat reforming
• Hydrocracking
• Isomerization
• Residue reduction
• Gasoline
• Distillate and residual fuels
• Hydrogen, hydrotreating, and sulfur plants
• Asphalt
• Lubricants
• Ethylene plants
• Simple and complex refineries
• Solvent recovery of aromatics
• Fuel values--heating values
• Answers to the exercises
• Glossary
• Index

About the Author

William L. Leffler earned an MBA and PhD from New York University and a BS from MIT. After a commission in the US Navy, he worked in the oil and gas and petrochemicals industries for 36 years in the US and abroad. Following that, he taught courses in universities and in companies on the upstream, downstream, and petrochemicals for 20 years while pursuing his writing career.

Dr. Leffler is a prolific petroleum industry writer of magazines and books (almost all with the words in Nontechnical Language in the title.) His books (some with co-authors) include this one on refining as well as petrochemicals, deepwater exploration & production, natural gas, pipelines and oil & gas production.