Most things in the part of chemistry called organic ar chains of carbons with or without some extra stuff attached to those chains. Crude oil is one of those chains. Refineries break or join together chains in order to get chains of the proper length.
In order to control how long is your chain of carbons you usually break the natural thing in very short chains, and then those chains go through a process where you chain them together. Usually this is done by controlling the temperature and pressure you “boil” them in. Different combinations of temperature and pressure do different things.
The same kind of processes is also used to make medicine or plastics, also products of organic chemistry.
If you want to learn more you should get accustomed to the fact that not all crude oil is made the same. They are usually separated in groups and are described as sweet/sour and light/heavy.
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