Oil Refinery

The Oil Refinery is the building used to convert Crude Oil into Petroleum. Petroleum is not available from any other production chain; it can only be produced by refining Crude Oil. This refinery is therefore the required processing step whenever a colony needs Petroleum for advanced recipes, fuels, or chemical manufacturing that require that resource.

Because the Oil Refinery is the sole method of producing Petroleum, players must plan to supply it with Crude Oil and provide storage or piping for the Petroleum output. The refinery functions as an interface between raw hydrocarbon deposits and the rest of the base’s chemical infrastructure: it extracts refined fuel from raw deposits that otherwise cannot be used directly as Petroleum.

• Input: Crude Oil. Petroleum cannot be produced by any other means.
• Output: Petroleum, which must be captured or stored for downstream use.
• Placement considerations: put the refinery where Crude Oil supply is convenient to minimize transport distance and to simplify routing of Petroleum to its consumers or storage.
• Supply stability: ensure a steady feed of Crude Oil to avoid interruptions in Petroleum availability; a lack of Crude Oil halts Petroleum production entirely.
• Integration: plan storage and distribution for Petroleum immediately downstream of the refinery so that produced Petroleum is not wasted or left to overflow.

All language sources describing this building or process report the same single conversion requirement: Petroleum comes only from refining Crude Oil. The Oil Refinery therefore serves as a mandatory processing building for any production chain that requires Petroleum.