petroleum refinery
1
4.3
- noun
- /pəˈtroʊliəm rɪˈfaɪnəri/
:
refinería de petróleo
- Petroleum refineries are prime candidates for improvement in energy efficiency; roughly 40 percent of their operating cost is incurred by energy demands.
- petroleum refinery and chemical
Examples
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An analysis of polluting facilities in California found that 62 percent of residents living within six miles of a petroleum refinery, cement plant, or power plant were people of color.
Blog text (24) -
These include laundries, tortilla factories, public baths, metal smelters, petroleum refineries, and thermal electric plants.
Academic text (1993) -
Its use is also growing among larger industrial facilities, such as pulp and paper mills and petroleum refineries.
Academic text (1994) -
Petroleum refineries also turn out jet fuel, heating oil, propane, and other products.
Academic text (2004) -
The northern part of Contra Costa County, California, is heavily industrialized with a number of petroleum refineries, chemical facilities, and other small industrial plants.
Academic text (1993) -
In the United States, for example, Blacks, Latinos, and other minorities account for 50% of the human health impacts from air toxic emissions from petroleum refineries, considerably more than their 31% share in the national population.
Blog text (20) -
Producing biobased products in conjunction with biofuels and other useful coproducts in a "biorefinery" facility, similar in concept to a petroleum refinery, can lower production costs.
Academic text (2001) -
A number of industries, including edible oil production plants, tanneries, textile wastewaters, petroleum refineries, pulp manufacturing industries, potato starch factories, and paper.
Academic text (2014) -
The city has several large petroleum refineries that produce gasoline and other fuels.
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Regulations on pollution have become stricter for petroleum refineries in recent years.
Synonyms
92
4.6
A factory where raw oil or sugar is cleaned and made ready to use
14
3.5
A factory that changes raw oil into fuels like gasoline and diesel
How Big
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: a 'refinery' is a facility for refining and 'petroleum' names the material being refined, so 'petroleum refinery' straightforwardly denotes a facility that refines petroleum. This noun–noun compound follows a common, cross-linguistic naming pattern and would be understandable to a B1 learner who knows both constituent words.
Etymology
Petroleum refinery combines petroleum (a word that literally means 'rock oil') and refinery (a place that 'refines' or cleans a product). Picture a factory where dark crude oil is cleaned and turned into gasoline, diesel and other fuels, which is why the name means 'a factory that processes crude oil into fuels'.