Guide: Petrochemical Refining

[septemberWaves]

Guide: Petrochemical Refining



Angel's Petrochem is one of the most complicated mods for Factorio that I'm aware of, and possibly one of the most complicated mods across all game platforms (for comparison, for those who are familiar with modded Minecraft, I find both GregTech and Rotarycraft simpler to comprehensively understand than Angel's Petrochem). So these guides will serve to break down the incredibly complex Petrochem processing chains and detail each process individually. The processes are very simple to understand on their own; what makes the mod so challenging is that there are a lot of processing chains.

About The Header Image

The first step in understanding Angel's Petrochem is to disregard the header image of this thread. I spent several hours putting it together but it's mainly just for looks (the reason it took me several hours was mostly because I was trying to decide which machine processes to use where). It's not balanced, it's not effective at producing anything other than plastic and explosives (though it does produce rather a lot of them), but it's not efficient and it won't run for very long without having to add a lot more flare stacks to void valuable chemicals.

The guides for each process will be added as independent posts in this thread and linked below. This collection of guides is currently a Work In Progress.

Basic Petrochemicals

Coal, Oil, & Natural Gas: viewtopic.php?f=185&t=50499#p293922

Organic Chemistry

Plastic Production

Other Processes

[septemberWaves]

Coal, Oil, & Natural Gas

Petrochem allows you to obtain petrochemicals from any hydrocarbon source. This means that, rather than just oil, you can use coal or natural gas as well (or as alternatives) to produce many of the same petrochemical products.

Multi-Phase Oil is obtained by putting a Pumpjack on an oil well - these are the same oil wells as the ones in the base game, but now they output Multi-Phase Oil instead of Crude Oil. Natural Gas is obtained by putting a Pumpjack on a gas well. These resemble oil wells, but have a somewhat greenish color.

Initial Processing of Oil

The first step in processing Multi-Phase Oil is to send it into an Oil and Gas Separator. This process produces Crude Oil, Raw Gas, and Sulfuric Waste Water.



Crude Oil can be refined in four different ways, depending on what secondary inputs you have access to and what output ratio you want. All four processes take place in a Refinery and are listed as follows (ratios included):
1) 100 Crude Oil ==> 1 Oil Residuals + 20 Base Mineral Oil + 30 Fuel Oil + 50 Naphtha
2) 90 Crude Oil + 20 Hydrogen ==> 1 Oil Residuals + 20 Base Mineral Oil + 20 Fuel Oil + 70 Naphtha
3) 40 Crude Oil + 60 Gas Condensates ==> 1 Oil Residuals + 40 Base Mineral Oil + 30 Fuel Oil + 30 Naphtha
4) 60 Crude Oil + 40 Residual Gas ==> 1 Oil Residuals + 60 Base Mineral Oil + 30 Fuel Oil + 10 Naphtha

All of these processes are useful in different situations. I would suggest using whichever one is best suited to your factory and your usage of all of the products and extra inputs. This may mean using several of the above processes.

Initial Processing of Natural Gas

The first step in processing Natural Gas is to send it into an Oil and Gas Separator. This process produces Gas Condensates, Raw Gas, and Sulfuric Waste Water.



Raw Gas, which is also produced by processing Multi-Phase Oil, must be refined in a Gas Refinery. This produces Acid Gas and Natural Gas Liquids.

Natural Gas Liquids can be processed in four different ways, depending on what secondary inputs you have access to, what primary output ratio you want, and what secondary output you want. The first process can take place in a Gas Refinery, but the three more advanced processes require an Advanced Gas Refinery due to the additional input and output. The processes are as follows (with ratios shown):
1) 100 Natural Gas Liquids ==> 50 Methane + 30 Ethane + 20 Butane
2) 100 Natural Gas Liquids + 50 Synthesis Gas ==> 90 Methane + 30 Ethane + 20 Butane + 10 Carbon Monoxide
3) 100 Natural Gas Liquids + 50 Residual Gas ==> 40 Methane + 40 Ethane + 50 Butane + 20 Toluene
4) 100 Natural Gas Liquids + 50 Gas Condensates ==> 30 Methane + 30 Ethane + 70 Butane + 20 Naphtha

All of these processes are useful in different situations. I would suggest using whichever one is best suited to your factory and your usage of all of the products and extra inputs. This may mean using several of the above processes.

Coal Cracking to Petrochem Intermediates

There are four ways of transforming Coal into Petrochem intermediate products. The above image shows all four methods.

The first method is coal liquefaction, and takes place in a Refinery. This takes inputs of Coal, Steam, and Naphtha, and outputs Naphtha (more than was input), Fuel Oil, and Methane. With the current output quantities I would not recommend using this process. It is very inefficient in terms of hydrocarbon output from coal, and I suspect that the fluid outputs are an order of magnitude less than they are supposed to be.

The other three processes are coal cracking processes. They all take place in an Advanced Chemical Plant. The recipes are as follows:
1) Coal ==> Coke + Hydrogen Sulfide + Benzene + Methane
2) Coal + Hydrogen + Red Metal Catalyst ==> Coke + Naphtha + Natural Gas Liquids + Base Mineral Oil + Metal Catalyst Carrier
3) Coal + Oxygen + Steam ==> Synthesis Gas + Carbon Dioxide + Hydrogen Sulfide

Note: I forgot to add an output belt for Coke from the first coal cracking process, but an output for it is needed.

Note 2: the first coal cracking process can be used to output Plastic (via two different production recipes), Hydrogen Sulfide, Residual Gas, and possibly some Coke, while only needing an additional input of Water (as well as the coal cracking inputs). This process will be described as an example in the Plastic Production guide.

Note 3: all of the coal cracking processes are useful in different situations. You may never have a use for any of them, or you may need all three at various locations in your factory.

[foodfactorio]

[+]
thanks for this guide, ive only reached the basic Oil stage so far (Multi Phase Oil), and am storing all the Natural Gas i can find until i can upgrade some other things as always low on steel but heres what i have so far. (it is mostly like one of your guide sections, except the Sulfuric Waste Water is piped away off screen to the Hydro Plant area).
[/+]
[collapse]
(i tried to put this picture in a "+" section, so that it needs a click to view it, as didnt want it to look like part of your guide, just to show you and say thanks, but wasnt sure how to get the expanding "+" symbol, so made it a spoiler, which only shows it with a click
[/collapse]

my_basic_progress_so_far.png (7.53 MiB) Viewed 10194 times