Corinth Refinery is a complex oil refinery

Oil refinery

An oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial process plant where crude oil is processed and refined into more useful petroleum products, such as gasoline, diesel fuel, asphalt base, heating oil, kerosene, and liquefied petroleum gas...

 with an annual capacity of 100000 oilbbl/d, operated by Motor Oil Hellas S.A.

Fuels production

Crude oil is processed in the Crude Distillation

Distillation

Distillation is a method of separating mixtures based on differences in volatilities of components in a boiling liquid mixture. Distillation is a unit operation, or a physical separation process, and not a chemical reaction....

 Unit, from which Liquified petroleum gas

Liquified petroleum gas

Liquefied petroleum gas is a flammable mixture of hydrocarbon gases used as a fuel in heating appliances and vehicles. It is increasingly used as an aerosol propellant and a refrigerant, replacing chlorofluorocarbons in an effort to reduce damage to the ozone layer...

 (LPG), Naphtha

Naphtha

Naphtha normally refers to a number of different flammable liquid mixtures of hydrocarbons, i.e., a component of natural gas condensate or a distillation product from petroleum, coal tar or peat boiling in a certain range and containing certain hydrocarbons. It is a broad term covering among the...

, Kerosene

Kerosene

Kerosene, sometimes spelled kerosine in scientific and industrial usage, also known as paraffin or paraffin oil in the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Ireland and South Africa, is a combustible hydrocarbon liquid. The name is derived from Greek keros...

, Diesel and Fuel Oil

Fuel oil

Fuel oil is a fraction obtained from petroleum distillation, either as a distillate or a residue. Broadly speaking, fuel oil is any liquid petroleum product that is burned in a furnace or boiler for the generation of heat or used in an engine for the generation of power, except oils having a flash...

 are produced. Kerosene and Diesel are further treated mainly in order to remove sulfur

Sulfur

Sulfur or sulphur is the chemical element with atomic number 16. In the periodic table it is represented by the symbol S. It is an abundant, multivalent non-metal. Under normal conditions, sulfur atoms form cyclic octatomic molecules with chemical formula S8. Elemental sulfur is a bright yellow...

 thus complying with the required specifications and to produce jet fuel

Jet fuel

Jet fuel is a type of aviation fuel designed for use in aircraft powered by gas-turbine engines. It is clear to straw-colored in appearance. The most commonly used fuels for commercial aviation are Jet A and Jet A-1 which are produced to a standardized international specification...

 and diesel fuel respectively (both automotive and heating

Heating oil

Heating oil, or oil heat, is a low viscosity, flammable liquid petroleum product used as a fuel for furnaces or boilers in buildings. Home heating oil is often abbreviated as HHO...

 grades).

Gasoline production

Naphtha

Naphtha

Naphtha normally refers to a number of different flammable liquid mixtures of hydrocarbons, i.e., a component of natural gas condensate or a distillation product from petroleum, coal tar or peat boiling in a certain range and containing certain hydrocarbons. It is a broad term covering among the...

 is treated to produce gasoline

Gasoline

Gasoline , or petrol , is a toxic, translucent, petroleum-derived liquid that is primarily used as a fuel in internal combustion engines. It consists mostly of organic compounds obtained by the fractional distillation of petroleum, enhanced with a variety of additives. Some gasolines also contain...

 of a high octane number, eliminating the need for adding lead

Tetra-ethyl lead

Tetraethyllead , abbreviated TEL, is an organolead compound with the formula 4Pb. An inexpensive additive, its addition to gasoline from the 1920's allowed octane ratings and thus engine compression to be boosted significantly, increasing power and fuel economy...

 to gasoline.

Hydrocracker complex

This unit is the most recent investment project undertaken by the Company the capital expenditure of which amounted to € 350 million completed within 2005. The operation of the Hydrocracker enabled the production of the new clean fuels with low sulfur content according to the specifications of the European Union

European Union

The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...

 effective as of 2005 and 2009 (Auto Oil II). Furthermore, the unit contributed decisively to the improvement of the environmental conditions at the Refinery as the emissions from Fluid catalytic cracking

Fluid catalytic cracking

Fluid catalytic cracking is the most important conversion process used in petroleum refineries. It is widely used to convert the high-boiling, high-molecular weight hydrocarbon fractions of petroleum crude oils to more valuable gasoline, olefinic gases, and other products...

 (FCC) were drastically reduced.

Fluid catalytic cracking complex

Atmospheric Fuel Oil is fed to the FCC complex to produce LPG, Gasoline, Diesel, and Fuel Oil. Parts of the LPGs are sent to downstream units and are converted into high quality gasoline components.

Lubricants production

Atmospheric Fuel Oil is also fed to the Lubes Vacuum

Vacuum

In everyday usage, vacuum is a volume of space that is essentially empty of matter, such that its gaseous pressure is much less than atmospheric pressure. The word comes from the Latin term for "empty". A perfect vacuum would be one with no particles in it at all, which is impossible to achieve in...

 Unit. After a series of processes in order to improve properties of the lubricant

Lubricant

A lubricant is a substance introduced to reduce friction between moving surfaces. It may also have the function of transporting foreign particles and of distributing heat...

s, such as viscosity index

Viscosity index

Viscosity index is an arbitrary measure for the change of viscosity with temperature. It is used to characterize lubricating oil in the automotive industry....

, pour point

Pour point

The pour point of a liquid is the lowest temperature at which it will pour or flow under prescribed conditions. It is a rough indication of the lowest temperature at which oil is readily pumpable. In crude oil a high pour point is generally assosiated with a high paraffin content. And typically...

, cloud point

Cloud point

The cloud point of a fluid is the temperature at which dissolved solids are no longer completely soluble, precipitating as a second phase giving the fluid a cloudy appearance...

, the final base lubes are produced and stored. Additionally, asphalt

Asphalt

Asphalt or , also known as bitumen, is a sticky, black and highly viscous liquid or semi-solid that is present in most crude petroleums and in some natural deposits, it is a substance classed as a pitch...

 can be produced from the Lubes vacuum unit, whereas the bottoms of both vacuum units are routed to the visbreaker

Visbreaker

A visbreaker is a processing unit in oil refinery whose purpose is to reduce the quantity of residual oil produced in the distillation of crude oil and to increase the yield of more valuable middle distillates by the refinery...

for further upgrading and production of fuel oil.