oil and gas industry
The petroleum industry, also known as the oil industry or the oil patch, includes the global processes of exploration, extraction, refining, transportation (often by oil tankers and pipelines), and marketing of petroleum products. The larges ...
is usually divided into three major components:
upstream
Upstream may refer to:
* Upstream (bioprocess)
* ''Upstream'' (film), a 1927 film by John Ford
* Upstream (networking)
* ''Upstream'' (newspaper), a newspaper covering the oil and gas industry
* Upstream (petroleum industry)
* Upstream (software ...
, midstream and
downstream
Downstream may refer to:
* Downstream (bioprocess)
* Downstream (manufacturing)
* Downstream (networking)
* Downstream (software development)
* Downstream (petroleum industry)
* Upstream and downstream (DNA), determining relative positions on DNA ...
. The midstream sector involves the transportation (by pipeline, rail, barge,
oil tanker
An oil tanker, also known as a petroleum tanker, is a ship designed for the bulk transport of oil or its products. There are two basic types of oil tankers: crude tankers and product tankers. Crude tankers move large quantities of unrefined ...
or truck), storage, and wholesale marketing of crude or refined petroleum products. Pipelines and other transport systems can be used to move crude oil from production sites to
refineries
A refinery is a production facility composed of a group of chemical engineering unit processes and unit operations refining certain materials or converting raw material into products of value.
Types of refineries
Different types of refinerie ...
and deliver the various refined products to downstream distributors. Natural gas pipeline networks aggregate gas from natural gas purification plants and deliver it to downstream customers, such as local utilities.
The midstream operations are often taken to include some elements of the upstream and downstream sectors. For example, the midstream sector may include
natural gas processing
Natural-gas processing is a range of industrial processes designed to purify raw natural gas by removing impurities, contaminants and higher molecular mass hydrocarbons to produce what is known as ''pipeline quality'' dry natural gas. Natural gas ...
Barge
Barge nowadays generally refers to a flat-bottomed inland waterway vessel which does not have its own means of mechanical propulsion. The first modern barges were pulled by tugs, but nowadays most are pushed by pusher boats, or other vessels. ...
companies
*
Railroad
Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a prep ...
Pipeline transport
Pipeline transport is the long-distance transportation of a liquid or gas through a system of Pipe (fluid conveyance), pipes—a pipeline—typically to a market area for consumption. The latest data from 2014 gives a total of slightly less than ...
companies
*
Logistics
Logistics is generally the detailed organization and implementation of a complex operation. In a general business sense, logistics manages the flow of goods between the point of origin and the point of consumption to meet the requirements of ...
and
technology
Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, scien ...
companies
*
Transloading
Transloading, also known as cross-docking, is the process of transferring a shipment from one mode of transportation to another. It is most commonly employed when one mode cannot be used for the entire trip, such as when goods must be shipped i ...
ISO 20815
ISO 20815 is the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standard for production assurance and reliability management in the petroleum, petrochemical and natural gas industries.
3.1.27 midstream
business category involving the
processing
Processing is a free graphical library and integrated development environment (IDE) built for the electronic arts, new media art, and visual design communities with the purpose of teaching non-programmers the fundamentals of computer programming ...
and
transportation
Transport (in British English), or transportation (in American English), is the intentional movement of humans, animals, and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, land ( rail and road), water, cable, pipelin ...
sectors of petroleum industry.ISO ISO 20815 accessed 6 June 2018
::''Examples:
transportation
Transport (in British English), or transportation (in American English), is the intentional movement of humans, animals, and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, land ( rail and road), water, cable, pipelin ...
pipelines, terminals, gas processing and treatment, LNG, LPG, and GTL.''
See also
*
Coal bed methane
Coalbed methane (CBM or coal-bed methane), coalbed gas, coal seam gas (CSG), or coal-mine methane (CMM) is a form of natural gas extracted from coal beds. In recent decades it has become an important source of energy in United States, Canada, Au ...
*
Downstream (petroleum industry)
The oil and gas industry is usually divided into three major sectors: upstream, midstream, and downstream. The downstream sector is the refining of petroleum crude oil and the processing and purifying of raw natural gas, as well as the marketi ...
*
Extraction of petroleum
Petroleum is a fossil fuel that can be drawn from beneath the earth's surface. Reservoirs of petroleum was formed through the mixture of plants, algae, and sediments in shallow seas under high pressure. Petroleum is mostly recovered from oil dri ...
Hydrocarbon exploration
Hydrocarbon exploration (or oil and gas exploration) is the search by petroleum geologists and geophysicists for deposits of hydrocarbons, particularly petroleum and natural gas, in the Earth using petroleum geology.
Exploration methods
Visi ...
*
Natural Gas
Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbon d ...
*
Natural gas condensate
Natural-gas condensate, also called natural gas liquids, is a low-density mixture of hydrocarbon liquids that are present as gaseous components in the raw natural gas produced from many natural gas fields. Some gas species within the raw natu ...
*
Natural-gas processing
Natural-gas processing is a range of industrial processes designed to purify raw natural gas by removing impurities, contaminants and higher molecular mass hydrocarbons to produce what is known as ''pipeline quality'' dry natural gas. Natural gas ...
*
Petroleum
Petroleum, also known as crude oil, or simply oil, is a naturally occurring yellowish-black liquid mixture of mainly hydrocarbons, and is found in geological formations. The name ''petroleum'' covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crud ...
*
Petroleum extraction
Petroleum is a fossil fuel that can be drawn from beneath the earth's surface. Reservoirs of petroleum was formed through the mixture of plants, algae, and sediments in shallow seas under high pressure. Petroleum is mostly recovered from oil dri ...
*
Oil production plant
An oil production plant is a facility which processes production fluids from oil wells in order to separate out key components and prepare them for export. Typical oil well production fluids are a mixture of oil, gas and produced water. An oil p ...
*
Oil refinery
An oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial process plant where petroleum (crude oil) is transformed and refined into useful products such as gasoline (petrol), diesel fuel, asphalt base, fuel oils, heating oil, kerosene, liq ...
*
Oil well
An oil well is a drillhole boring in Earth that is designed to bring petroleum oil hydrocarbons to the surface. Usually some natural gas is released as associated petroleum gas along with the oil. A well that is designed to produce only gas ma ...
*
Upstream (petroleum industry)
The oil and gas industry is usually divided into three major sectors: upstream (or exploration and production - E&P), ''midstream'' and '' downstream''. The upstream sector includes searching for potential underground or underwater crude oil and ...