Customer Reviews

Petroleum Refining in Nontechnical Language, Fourth Edition

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you're new to the "nontechnical" sector of Petroleum Refining this should be your first stop for industry knowledge! Leffler's captivating writing style will lead you naturally from the beginning to the end of the refining process, thoroughly and concisely explaining all of the important and essential points along the way. It's definately a MUST READ!

David Morris, SPHR.........Director Human Resources

My boss at work gave me this book in an effort to get me up to speed on the industries we monitor. Having absolutely no background in oil and natural gas (beyond some general remarks dropped here and there in my undergraduate engineering curriculum), I found the text to be very informative, albeit in a non-technical way. Potential readers of this text should note that the information is highly focused- the author only covers refining of petroleum, and not other topics of interest, such as oil field exploration and development or petrochemicals manufacturing.

I have to agree with some of the previous reviewers who correctly pointed that some of the information contained in the book, at least from a rigorous technical standpoint, was not entirely correct. However, that was not the intent of the text. The goal of this text is to introduce the key concepts of the petroleum refining industry, and explain them in a way that say, for example, the personal secretary to an oil executive would understand. I found myself having to consult some of my core textbooks in chemical engineering after reading various topics in the book for more detailed technical information. Those of you looking for the hard-core, quantitative, technical information related to this information, such as chemical processes and process economics, will be disappointed with this text. However, those of you who have a technical or scientific background but no real knowledge of the oil industry even at the rudimentary level (like myself) will find this book to be a good starting point for basic explanations of key concepts.

That said, I see the book as being very useful for those contemplating involvement in some way with the petroleum refining industry, or trying to make some sense of what industry insiders often say to outsiders. If the author takes it upon himself to correct the numerous errata in the book, I would definitely see this text being suitable for a lower division seminar course or survey course on one aspect of the petroleum industry.

In sum, this book more than lives up to its title. My only other complaint is the chapters in the book devoted to additives such as TAME and MTBE. Since they are no longer added to most fuels in the US, future editions might want to drop detailed coverage of this topic (but perhaps refer to them in a historical context). Mr. Leffler did an excellent job of demystifying an obscure but extremely important subject. For those of you with a non-technical background, I advise you to read this book one chapter at a time and bounce the key ideas off of an industry insider. For those of you with a technical background but no real knowledge of the oil industry, I strongly advise you to to read this book and then consult other relevant titles from PennWell Publishing (who incidentally publish the highly informative Oil & Gas Journal, as well as other publications on the oil and natural gas industries).

This is a very good publication for anybody who wants to understand the basics of refining without too much chemistry or engineering details. Easy to understand, but sometime I would wish for a deeper discussion of the processes. It is a MUST for nontechnical staff in refineries (eg. finance) and it gives enough background for good discussion with engineers.

As an experienced chemical engineer new to downstream oil work, i.e., refineries, this book has been highly useful. I expect to use it as a quick reference years after mastering the field. William Leffler has written a simple, easy to read training program for engineers and non-engineers alike. If you are new to refineries or would like to know more about the subject, say from the perspective of ethanol refining, this is book for you. I suggest starting here and going on to harder material later.

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I have a BA degree in International Studies and an MBA in Finance. I have been in market and competitor analysis with energy consulting firms and operating companies for 28 years.

I have relied on this book every step of the way.

Do not expect to get a detailed understanding of how refining works. If that is what you are seerking, you're not in the right place (hint: read the title!). What this spelndid little book does is give a business person enough background to understand the various processes, both individually and as part of the flow from crude oil to, for example gasoline. How good is this book? Well, it has been in continuous publication for some 20 years.

Not going to be able to do process design of a petroleum refinery unit with this, but for other disciplines or general orientation, this book can't be beat. Even I find it useful for quick simple reference, and I am a Chemical Engineer with 15 years experience doing process design of petroleum refinery units.

Very Good overview of petroleum refining. Well written.
I would recommend it for everyone working in an oil refinery as an introduction text.
However, it is not written for process engineers as the process engineering concepts are not covered and sometimes incorrect.
For example, Leffler states that "the perforations permit the vapors to rise through the column and the liquids to fall" to explain how distillation perforated trays work. Liquid flow through the perforations has to be avoided. This is called "tray dumping". Better to read Lieberman's books if looking for a technical book.

I bought this book because I changed my job and moved to a technical assistance to sales position. I have a MBA Chemical Engineering background and in the earlier years of my carrier I designed equipment for chemical industry so I found the few tecnicalities inside the book pretty easy to understand.
In my new job I am supposed to visit refineries I needed to brush up my technical language in order to establish effective communication channels with our customers.
I think the book was a very good purchase because it gave me the right information at the right level of detail I was looking for.

The language, as its title says, is non-technical, and sufficiently down to earth and basic that it is recommended lecture for those starting in the industry.

Recommended to read first, before moving to more technical and engineering textbooks.

More illustrations could make it even more complete.

Randall Croes

This book is very well done. It covers all the basics about petroleum refining with enough details to be useful and it is written in a very easy to understand language. I recommend it to anyone who wants to understand the main purpose of all major petroleum refining equipments and their respective strategic use.