Oil Refinery

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Refinery
File:Refinery.png
Name Refinery
Type Machine
Physics No
Transparency Yes
Luminance No
Blast Resistance ?
Tool Grid Wood Pickaxe.png
Stackable Yes (64)
Data Value dec:167
EMC Value 42,164
Mod Included BuildCraft

The Refinery is a machine which converts Oil into Fuel (or, in older vesions of Tekkit, Liquid Biomass into Biofuel). Oil can be pumped in with Waterproof Pipes, the Refinery can be filled with buckets or you can place the refinery directly on top of an Oil Fabricator and the oil will be pumped directly into the Refinery. Fuel that is created is pumped out with a Wooden Waterproof Pipe. The conversion rate of Oil to Fuel is 1:1. These machines require extensive amounts of power.

Recipe


EMC value = 42,164

Designs

Efficiency Designs

More efficient designs often include a large power unit near the refineries, with multiple engines powering conductive pipe, usually gold, because of less power loss. This refinery can then also be started and shut off easily from the same redstone current. [There is no need for a localized power supply for multiple refineries. It is, however, more convenient as with any complex setup, to have a larger power supply for multiple components. However, you may use conductive teleport pipes or glass fibre cables to reduce energy loss.]

File:2012-07-31 04.35.00.png
This larger refinery has a total of 6 oil refinery units, powered by 25 combustion engines. Portions of the refinery are powered by EU but require a significant amount of energy to operate.

Size and Minimizing the Space Usage

Real refineries and Buildcraft refineries have one thing in common, they usually require a lot of space. If oil is being extracted from multiple wells, you may prefer to build a large refinery. To minimize the space used you can either build towers or build the refinery underground. Building towers is the easiest alternative. This design must, in almost all cases, be powered by a nearby engine station to work effeciently. [This paragraph tells us nothing on saving space. A properly built refinery plant does not need to take very much space at all. Keep in mind that even a single refinery can process enough oil to make fuel for over 50 combustion engines.]

Power

Buildcraft Engines

A Redstone Engine is not recommended for running refineries as it produces very little power required for the different components.

A Steam Engine is the best choice if your aim is the best total output of fuel; they do not, however, provide the best efficiency.

A Combustion Engine is the most efficient choice in terms of production volume. Due to using fuel itself, though, it is not the best option for total fuel output unless you are powering the engines with lava. Combustion Engines also need to be cooled to prevent them from exploding.

Any Eletrical Engines are also efficient if you have a good source of energy like Solar Panels but things like Glass Fibre Cables can be expensive

File:2012-07-31 20.03.51.png
Machine hall. Electrical engines and Energy Link requires minimum space (compared to the cooling systems for cobustion engines)and can be constantly supplied with power from a good cable network.

Energy Link

Alternatively, EU from the Industrial Craft 2 mod can be used to power the Oil Refinery via an Energy Link. EU is probably the best choice for running a refinery continuously or for running massive refinery facilities. It will need aproximatly 25EU per Tick to run at maximum speed.

File:2012-07-31 20.05.41.png
Some people prefer to build more advanched refineries and can then construct control rooms to easily regulate the refinery from remote. Here's my example.

Energy Usage

Refineries use a lot of energy and it is probably best to supply it using Conductive Pipes (they require several Combustion Engines running at the same time to power them to reasonable efficiency). Using Conductive Pipes, the Oil Refinery requires 4 Combustion Engines to achieve cuboid color of green, which is maximum efficiency (see Efficiency Indicator below).

When converting Oil -> Fuel using an Energy Link:energy


EU/t input EU per bucket Time per bucket Buckets per hour
24.5 EU/t 25,000 51 seconds 70.6 buckets per hour

Efficiency Indicator

As a refinery is running, two small cuboids on its left and right will move up and down. The faster they move, the faster oil gets converted into fuel. The little cuboids will also be of different colours depending on the refinery's speed and efficiency, green being faster than blue, which is faster than red.

Refineries are faster and more efficient (for a given energy input) when not storing any fuel. Fuel should be piped out constantly to external storage to maintain a high refinery efficiency. Redstone engines can be run full-time at the refinery's output for this purpose, without concern for overheating. They will also pull finished fuel from the refinery at a rate greater than the refinery produces it, making redstone engines an optimal choice for pumping out to storage.

Video Tutorials

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