Legal Definitions - distillate

In the oil and gas industry, distillate refers to the liquid hydrocarbons, also known as condensate, that are separated from natural gas. More generally, a distillate is any product obtained from the process of distillation.

A distillate refers to a substance that has been purified or separated from a mixture through a process called distillation. This process typically involves heating a liquid to create a vapor, then cooling that vapor back into a liquid, thereby separating different components based on their boiling points or leaving impurities behind.

In the specific context of the oil and gas industry, a distillate often refers to a liquid hydrocarbon, also known as natural gas condensate, that is naturally present in raw natural gas and can be separated from it as a valuable liquid product.

• Example 1 (General - Petroleum Refining):

  Imagine a large oil refinery processing crude oil. Crude oil is a complex mixture of many different hydrocarbons. When it's heated in a tall distillation column, different components vaporize and then condense at various temperatures, separating into distinct products.

  How it illustrates the term: Products like gasoline, diesel fuel, and jet fuel are all distillates because they are specific liquid fractions separated from the original crude oil mixture through the distillation process.

• Example 2 (General - Water Purification):

  A laboratory needs extremely pure water for sensitive experiments, free from minerals and contaminants found in tap water. They use a water distiller, which boils tap water and collects the steam after it condenses back into liquid.

  How it illustrates the term: The pure water collected in this manner is a distillate because it has been separated from the impurities in the original tap water through the process of boiling and condensation.

• Example 3 (Oil & Gas Specific - Natural Gas Processing):

  A natural gas well produces raw gas that contains not only methane but also heavier, valuable liquid hydrocarbons mixed within it. At a natural gas processing plant, these liquids are separated from the gaseous stream.

  How it illustrates the term: These separated liquid hydrocarbons, such as pentane or butane, are referred to as natural gas distillates (or condensates). They are "wet" components removed as a liquid from the raw natural gas stream, fitting the specific oil and gas definition of the term.