number of refineries?

[kuchenmann]

Still do not know which is the efficient way to produce products which need oil (plastic etc.). How many refineries do I need? E.g. I have 5 oil fields, pumping into one tank, 1 refinery?
Or do I need 1 refinery for e.g. 2 oil-fields? Or 1 refinery for every oil-field?

[Koub]

this depends on the yield of the fields. If you watch closely, a refinery can process up to 10 crude oil every 5 seconds.That's 2 crude per second.
So if you have up tu 2 crude oil per second generated by your pumpjacks, then one single refinery is enough.

[Thegrover]

I work in a modular fashion. I work on the idea of having plenty of oil arriving by train. Then go nuts with refineries. Remember, there's no such thing as over-production, only under-consumption. I have about 14 refineries taking oil from three trains worth of outposts (one picks up all the depleted outposts since their output is so slow).

Same principle for smelters, circuit production and other commonly used items, just make more than you need and let the system get stopped by products backing up, the small cost of energy drain of idle equipment is a negligible price to pay

[Koub]

You do realize the OP didn't ask "how do you like to play?", but "how many refineries are needed for a given number of oil fields?".

[Thegrover]

You do realize the OP didn't ask "how do you like to play?", but "how many refineries are needed for a given number of oil fields?".

I do, and the direct answer quickly becomes more complicated than I believe the OP wanted (that is, it's based on yield and even pressure if you're piping long distances), and so offered for my advice of "just build plenty"

[Blurb]

You do realize the OP didn't ask "how do you like to play?", but "how many refineries are needed for a given number of oil fields?".

I do, and the direct answer quickly becomes more complicated than I believe the OP wanted (that is, it's based on yield and even pressure if you're piping long distances), and so offered for my advice of "just build plenty"

You're a fool.

The answer is not particularly complicated, as there are only two variables at play; the average oil field output and the average working speed of refineries.
These variables can be simplified by making following assumptions: all oil fields are depleted (output at 0.1 oil/s), oil fields and refineries have the same speed modifier, and there are no outside bottlenecks in production (oil transportation, limited product storage stopping refineries, etc.)

Going by this, it's down to basic arithmetic.
A refinery consumes 2 oil per second (whether it's running standard or advanced oil processing), and a pumpjack produces 0.1 oil per second.
This means that at same speed modifier, each refinery needs 20 depleted oil fields to sustain constant production.

[Thegrover]

You do realize the OP didn't ask "how do you like to play?", but "how many refineries are needed for a given number of oil fields?".

I do, and the direct answer quickly becomes more complicated than I believe the OP wanted (that is, it's based on yield and even pressure if you're piping long distances), and so offered for my advice of "just build plenty"

You're a fool.

The answer is not particularly complicated, as there are only two variables at play; the average oil field output and the average working speed of refineries.
These variables can be simplified by making following assumptions: all oil fields are depleted (output at 0.1 oil/s), oil fields and refineries have the same speed modifier, and there are no outside bottlenecks in production (oil transportation, limited product storage stopping refineries, etc.)

Going by this, it's down to basic arithmetic.
A refinery consumes 2 oil per second (whether it's running standard or advanced oil processing), and a pumpjack produces 0.1 oil per second.
This means that at same speed modifier, each refinery needs 20 depleted oil fields to sustain constant production.

That's a quick assumption about my foolishness.

There are other factors at play, as I mentioned, having pump jacks near your refineries simplifies matters, but if you run long pipelines from your outposts rather than transporting by train, the throughput of the pipes will limit the total throughput, due to the inherent "resistance" of the pipe entities against the flow of fluid, see here

[Mendel]

He wants to be efficient. So, just to build plenty is not perhaps the most efficient way.
Then again, he is just starting to produce oil based stuff so assuming his oils are depleted is a bit silly as well.

We don´t know the amount of oil pools and we don´t know their yields.

So... my advice:

Initially, try to make as many pumpjacks as you reasonably can make, and let them pump crude oil into tanks, if you have them available. Try to research Fluid handling as soon as possible.
Count the amount of crude oil per second that you are getting from the total number of yield you get initially from all your pumpjacks.
Now, let´s say your total yield is 12 oil per second. each refinery can process 2 oil per second.
12/2 =6 refineries.

But my advice is, substract 1.

So make 5 refineries and let the excess oil flow to your tanks because your yield will reduce over time and you will be glad to have a bit of a buffer later on so you will then have time to expand when you start to run out.

Now, what I like to do is for each 5 refineries I make 1 chemical plant that makes lubricant, 1 chemical plant that makes light oil from heavy oil and 7 chemical plants that make petroleum from light oil. Then I make also a few tanks for each of those liquids and build a buffer while setting up things like plastic manufacturing and such. Im not sure this is perfect in terms of efficiency and ratios but it has worked fine for me.
Later you can tweak this a little to get other things like fuel for flame thrower instead of so much petrol.

Also, late game you should make speed modules for your pumpjacks, that way you will not suffer so badly when the oil fields deplete. Instead you will get reasonable amount of oil from them forever, especially if you use beacons for even more speed as well.

Every time when I find that my crude oil tanks are full (I tend to have 1 or 2 storage tanks per pumpjack), I make 5 more refineries and 9 more chemical plants just so everything ramps up the same way.