The United States is the biggest oil producer in the world, but trades nearly one third of the oil it produces for foreign oil. Why can’t we use it ourselves...
Factorio oil processing is a pain in the butt. Surprisingly accurate.
It has been a long time since I played the game, but if I recall correctly my approach is to research coal liquefaction ASAP, and then have enough chem plants to crack all heavy into light, and all light into gas. Then use the pumps to set preferential consumption targets:
gas - sulphur and plastic, in whatever order
light - rocket fuel, then solid fuel, then cracking into gas
heavy - coal liquefaction (backfeeding), then lubricant, then cracking into light
With a large enough supply of coal and water, this means that the oil processing will never stop due to a backlog of light or heavy. Only if there’s a backlog of gas, but my factories typically eat gas like there’s no tomorrow.
Factorio oil processing is a pain in the butt. Surprisingly accurate.
It has been a long time since I played the game, but if I recall correctly my approach is to research coal liquefaction ASAP, and then have enough chem plants to crack all heavy into light, and all light into gas. Then use the pumps to set preferential consumption targets:
With a large enough supply of coal and water, this means that the oil processing will never stop due to a backlog of light or heavy. Only if there’s a backlog of gas, but my factories typically eat gas like there’s no tomorrow.