Oil, and the gases associated with it, consists of a mixture of hundreds of different hydrocarbons, containing any number of carbon atoms from one to over 100. Most of these are straight-chain saturated hydrocarbons that, except for burning, have relatively little direct use in the chemical industry or as fuel for cars. Thus the various fractions obtained from the distillation of crude oil (see CHEMISTRY REVIEW, Vol. 28, No. 2, pp. 26–29) and the associated gases have to be treated in oil refineries to make them useful.
The most valuable fractions for the chemical industry, and for producing petrol, are liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), naphtha, kerosine and gas oil.
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