Products from Raffinerie Heide
A constant presence in our day-to-day life

The statistics tell us that every German resident uses an average of 1,900 litres of crude oil a year. This total includes not just the energy we need for mobility and to keep warm but also a proportion assignable to the multitude of products made from crude oil or mineral oil, without which modern life would scarcely be conceivable.Although the market for crude oil is global, distributing a refinery’s products is primarily a local or regional business due to the transport costs involved.

Accordingly, and in response to market requirements in northern Germany, we chiefly manufacture products from the middle-distillates family. These include diesel, heating oil and aviation turbine fuel, as well as some 450,000 tonnes of petrochemical products that we manufacture each year and supply as raw materials to various chemical companies.

Quality management

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Crude oil
products

Raffinerie Heide products from crude and mineral oil include:

  • Liquid gas
  • Fuels
  • Heating oil
  • Bitumen
  • Aromatics
  • Alkenes

All products must be of highly consistent quality according to precisely defined DIN standards. As the basis for our product quality, we implement a comprehensive quality management systemthat covers all of the methods, processes and workflows used at Raffinerie Heide.

The personnel in our in-house laboratory are responsible for the continual monitoring of the production process, from the moment the crude oil arrives to the shipment of the finished product. By regularly taking and analysing samples they ensure that the quality of our products complies with the most stringent standards.

Mineral oil –
the most important raw material for refineries

Raffinerie Heide transforms mineral oil into high-quality products used in your day-to-day life

Refineries practically form the backbones of our lives, ensuring that these many end productsare always of identical quality. This is a complex task given that mineral oil is a natural commodity which varies greatly in composition depending on its place of origin.
In essence oil is made up of carbon and hydrogen. However, in addition to these, it always contains compounds of sulphur, nitrogen, oxygen and various trace elements. Oil can be runny or viscous, and it ranges in colour from pale-yellow honey tones to as black as the proverbial night.

Omnipresent in day-to-day life

Mineral oil quality

Different oils have differing product yields and are therefore traded on world markets at differing prices. One yardstick for the quality of oil is its viscosity, and another is its sulphur content: the lower the better. From ‘light’ and ‘sweet’ low-sulphur crude oil, refineries can produce lighter products, such as petrol, diesel, aviation turbine fuel and heating oil.

The refining process is correspondingly lengthier and more expensive where ‘heavy’ and ‘acidic’ types of crude oil are involved. Around the world there are dozens of different types of crude oil with differing properties and prices. However, standardised products known as benchmark oils are traded on the futures markets of Rotterdam, London and New York.

It depends on the composition

To ensure the consistent quality of our productswe blend semi-finished products in the refinery as necessary in order to achieve the standardised target products more easily. Just as a whisky distillery will combine wheat from several years’ harvests in order to achieve a consistent flavour, semi-finished products are also blended in a refinery to achieve consistent quality.

The blends produced vary depending on the time of year. Since there is more construction work in summer, demand for bitumen is higher on the German and European markets during this season, and for the experts at the refinery this means adding more ‘heavy’ oil into the mix.

Consistent quality

Our handling of the environment and resources

We use energy and raw materials carefully.
We continuously measure and optimise our production and work processes as well as our energy flows in order to reduce the consumption of resources, waste and emissions. .
We inform our staff about energy and resource efficiency to raise conscious awareness of our individual behaviour. We take an interest in recycling and the reasonable use of energy.
Our goal is to use raw materials optimally while also reducing their impact on the environment.

Raffinerie Heide, from the Mission Statement