Refineries

Facility types and classification

OpenStreetMap calls many different plants a refinery. Every feature is classified by its actual activity; only crude oil refineries enter refinery counts, maps and capacity. Other types stay listed so that nothing disappears silently.

How certain is the classification?

• Confirmed 239 — Manual review with a public source, an EIA record or a Wikidata oil-refinery class.
• Capacity tag 23 — An OpenStreetMap refinery name with a crude capacity in barrels per day.
• OSM tags only 279 — Only OpenStreetMap tags support the activity; treat it as unverified.

17 records were reclassified against the previous edition and 5 left it as merged or out of scope; each change is listed on the record and in the API. Report a classification error

United States: EIA refinery capacity

Atmospheric crude distillation capacity as of 1 January 2026 from the EIA Refinery Capacity Report. Operable capacity is operating plus idle capacity.

Charge capacity in barrels per stream day for the current year; site counts include only refineries reporting the unit. The EIA report lists 124 US refineries; 58 are matched to a mapped site.

From crude oil to products

A simplified refinery: crude is heated and separated by boiling range in an atmospheric column. Heavier streams go to vacuum distillation and conversion units; products are then treated and blended.

Gasoline

Light fraction blended with reformate, alkylate and isomerate into motor fuel.

Diesel and gas oil

Middle distillate desulfurized for road, rail, marine and off-road engines.

Jet fuel and kerosene

Middle distillate treated to aviation or lamp-oil specifications.

LPG

Propane and butane from the top of the column; used for heating, cooking and petrochemicals.

Fuel oil and residue

Heavy stream used as marine or industrial fuel, or upgraded in conversion units.

Naphtha

Feed for catalytic reforming and for steam crackers that make ethylene and propylene.

Asphalt and bitumen

Vacuum residue used for road paving and roofing.

Refinery process units

Vacuum distillation

Separates atmospheric residue under low pressure into gas oils and vacuum residue without thermal cracking.

Fluid catalytic cracking (FCC)

Breaks heavy gas oil into gasoline, LPG and light cycle oil over a hot circulating catalyst.

Hydrocracking

Cracks heavy streams with hydrogen at high pressure into low-sulfur diesel, jet fuel and naphtha.

Catalytic reforming

Turns low-octane naphtha into high-octane reformate and produces hydrogen.

Hydrotreating and desulfurization

Removes sulfur and nitrogen with hydrogen so fuels meet specifications.

Coking

Thermally cracks the heaviest residue into lighter liquids and petroleum coke.

Alkylation

Combines light olefins with isobutane into alkylate, a clean high-octane gasoline component.

Isomerization

Rearranges light paraffins into branched, higher-octane molecules.

Counts of mapped sites whose OSM product tag lists the product. Most sites have no product tag, so these are not production data.

Mapped crude oil refineries by country

Site counts, not capacity or throughput. OpenStreetMap coverage differs by country.