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CRUDE OIL

Types of Crude Oil: Heavy vs Light, Sweet vs Sour, and TAN count

Weight of Crude: Light Oil vs Heavy Oil

Heavy oil:

evaporates slowly
contains materials used to make products like asphalt

Light oil:

requires less processing
produces a greater percentage of gasoline and diesel

The standard unit of measurement for oil weight is API (American Petroleum Institute) Gravity. This scale was created to measure the density of oil, heavy to light.

The higher the API, the lighter the oil.
The lower the API, the heavier the oil

Sweet or Sour Crude Oil

What makes a crude oil "sweet" or "sour" is the amount of sulfur it contains.

Sweet crude has very low levels of sulfur, well under 1%.
Sour crude has as much as 1-2% of sulfur.

Midstream companies and refiners that transport, store, and process sour oil know they need extra treating capabilities to take out the sulfur and sweeten the product.

TAN Count of Crude Oil

TAN stands for “Total Acid Number” and is a measure of how corrosive it is.

If a crude has a high TAN number, producers must use more robust metallurgy than standard so their processes can handle that corrosivity and keep the crude in the pipe.

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