Big Z's Guide to Big Oil

[Zourin]

I've finally had a chance to play around with it, so here's your unofficial guide to how to go black and never go back.

Tech
Oil Harvesting - Unlocks Pumpjacks. Useless by itself.
Oil Processing 1 - Unlocks the Refinery and Chemical Lab. Now you can do something useful on the spot.
Fluid Logistics - Unlocks storage tanks, and pumps you won't be able to use for a long while.
Oil Processing 2 - Alters the refining of Crude oil to favor Light Oil and Petroleum Gas over Heavy Oil

The Goo
This is what you are going to have to pipe around. There's no getting around it, you have to use pipes.

Heavy Oil - Useful for Lubricant
Light Oil - Mostly for Solid Fuel, but this isn't the only use...
Petroleum Gas - Used for fuel, but also used to produce Sulfur
Sulfuric Acid - Throw in some sulfur, iron, and water. Keep away from children.

Junk in the Trunk
This is the stuff that doesn't need pipes! Back that [car] up!

Solid Fuel - This superfuel can be made by processing Heavy Oil, Light Oil, and Petroleum Gas. More than 6x as powerful as a chunk of coal.
Sulfur - Thank goodness, that smell in your trunk isn't a body. Turns out, you can move Sulfur around like a normal item! Used for batteries and explosives.
Plastic - Probably the first use for Petroleum Gas you're going to want, as it's a new component for Advanced Electronics. The trouble you go through for an iPump app.
Barrels - Full or Empty, these reusable canisters move in 8-packs, with 10 units of Crude Oil in each. Sadly, that's the only fluid it can hold.
Explosives - If it goes boom, it came from the Chem lab. You better go check on it.
Engines - Combustion or Electric, it's gonna need lubricant.
Processors - All your favorite electronics, now fully doused in sulfuric acid, and I do mean all of them. Avoid licking these. You have been warned
Batteries - You can lick these. It's not advisable, as they're better used for Lasers, Accumulators, and personal armor mods.

The Plans
Despite having slots, you can't put mods in them. Expect pollution levels high enough to make superheroes out of Biters, and massive power draws. Consider having an independent power plant for your refinery, you're gonna need it.

Splats - No, you're not dripping something. The conspicuous black splats on the terrain is Oil. No matter how hard you pump it, it's not going away, so plan on building around it.

Pumpjacks - These Texas State Flowers will pump you up. With Oil! Once placed, you can see how fast it produces. Don't get too comfy in one place, as oil fields can rapidly drain compared to coal, and productivity will drain for every hundred or so units it pumps until it stops altogether.

Tanks - The humble tank is used to store up to 1000 units of fluid, and can contain any fluid that you can pipe. Do be careful, as it has a bad habit of connecting to everything around it.

Refinery The centerpiece of all the magic and mayhem. Refineries convert crude oil into the triple-threat of Heavy Oil, Light Oil, and Petroleum Gas. If any of these three back up, be warned, that the refinery will stop processing additional crude.

Chemical Lab - Everything you need to break bad in a much easier to build factory than the Refinery. The Chemical lab is your work horse. It packs and unpacks barrels, it converts refined products into Solid Fuel, and makes all the stray goodies and goos you're going to need along the way. Do be aware that you will need at least three of these connected to your refinery to convert excess into solid fuel, or your refinery may back up and stop production of other goods.


The Factories

The Oil Field
Oil fields come, and can go just as fast. You'll likely find yourself putting down Derricks and equipment, and later on, pulling them up and finding yourself a fresh puddle to pump. Your best bet is to pipe the oil to the nearest train station, and have a chemical lab pack the texas gold up for you in barrels to be moved elsewhere. Be warned, however, that Oil Fields tend to be set up on the frontiers, and generate a large amount of pollution that may draw displeased natives.

Produces: Crude Oil (Barrels/Pipe)
Raw Materials Needed: None
Intermediaries: Steel Barrels (optional, but recommended)

The Refinery
This will be one of the more complex factories you will build, as Refineries themselves are huge (5x5), produce three different products simultaneously, and are generally cumbersome things in combination with all the impassable pipes running to and fro. At the start, you will need three Chemical labs producing solid fuel to ensure you don't back up the refinery. Some goods do not need to be produced directly at the Refinery site, as there are breaks in product chains where materials can be shipped out via belt/train and continued elsewhere. Those will be discussed later. For now, you will want to focus on supporting the logistics of what can't be done elsewhere. It's suggested to keep a fairly large reservoir of tanks for holding crude oil coming in from the fields. One refinery and a set of chem labs can produce staggering amounts of product in a short amount of time. In the case of solid fuel, possibly more than you're prepared to burn off.

Produces: Solid Fuel, Engines, Electrical Engines, Sulfur, Plastics, Flamethrower Fuel
Raw Materials Needed: Crude Oil, Iron, Coal, Steel, Water, Copper or Electronic Circuits
Intermediary Products: Iron Gears (Engines), Pipe (Engines), Lubricant (Engines), Light Oil (Fuel, Flamethrower Fuel), Heavy Oil (Fuel, Flamethrower Fuel, Lubricant), Petroleum Gas (Plastics, Sulfur), Electronic Circuits (Electric Engines)

The Meth Labs
Okay, it's actually sulfuric acid. Sulfur is a HUGE break in the production chain as this can be belted/shipped, but everything that uses it requires chem labs to produce. Aside from Explosives, you need Sulfuric Acid for a lot of high-tech products, including batteries and processors. These, fortunately, are chem labs that you can incorporate closer to your main factory processes where needed (away from the tangled mess that's your Refinery). Be aware that many products require additional water, so plan ahead, as one pump may only be able to support 1-2 labs at a time.

Produces: Batteries, Processors, Explosives
Raw Materials Needed: Water (lots), Copper, Iron, Coal, Plastic
Intermediary Products: Sulfuric Acid (Batteries, Processors)

[Calico]

Nice guide.

But Pumpjacks don't run dry....they just produce reaaaaally slow after some time. Everything else seems right, as far as i can see.

[Zourin]

They more or less stop when production hits 0.1. At that point, it's time to move on.

[Calico]

They more or less stop when production hits 0.1. At that point, it's time to move on.

Nah. My main base has 25 Pumpjacks+another 11 or so in outposts, i guess all are at 0.1/s production. Thats almost enough to keep 2 refineries going without pause. They produce the entire fuel for boilers (28) and furnaces (15-20), plus all the plastic and acid needed for the entire factory. Finally a not depleting ressource other then just electricity. Just not sure what to do with the 25K of Solid Fuel, but the game is almost over anyway.

[RetroJL]

To add:

Small Pump: The mighty midget of the Factorio industry. Placing these properly will greatly increase the efficiency of your networks.

2 best uses I've found so far:

1. Tapped out oil fields. Putting a few pumps on the line out of a tapped field pushes the trickle of oil down the line. ie: the pipes by the pumpjacks will be 0.1 and the pipes by the refinery will be 10.0 instead of a uniform 5.0/whatever.

2. Any 3+ way intersection. An intersection of 3+ seems to try and equalize pressure over all the different lines. Place pumps facing out of the refinery area to force the pressure all towards the chemical plants. Or place them more down range to create a kind of high-priority line while still keeping some flow to other lines.

[BurnHard]

Well the way I understand fluid system now, is that it doesn't work with pressure, but just every pipe-segment is able to store up to 10 units of fluid and all of the fluid-units in the whole system are evenly distributed to all connected pipes and storages. Pumps at the moment are only useful if you want to fill up the capacity of one section of a Y or X- intersection first.

[RetroJL]

True, pressure is probably the wrong word to use but the mechanics are similar in this case. Pumps basically force anything after them in the line to fill up before the parts before them. What pumps do for efficiency is letting you force the pipes next to the chemical plant to be at 10.0 letting the plant pull in fluid at a much faster rate than if it was just a small trickle.

[MaxStrategy]

Great guide!