Crude oil is made up of a mixture of hydrocarbons, and the distillation process aims to separate this crude oil into broad categories of its hydrocarbons component, or “fractions.” Crude oil is first heated and then put into a distillation column, also known as a still, where different products boil off and are recovered at different temperatures
Refineries use complex processes to distil crude oil into fuels, such as gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and bunker oil, or raw materials for making plastics, solvents or detergents