A glossary of common terms and abbreviations used in the industry, with links to more in-depth articles on key words
FAME - (Fatty acid methyl ester) the most common form of biodiesel used for blending into diesel fuel
Fateh (crude) - a medium, sour crude grade produced in UAE
Fatty acid methyl ester - (FAME) the most common form of biodiesel used for blending into diesel fuel
Fat oil - fat oil is the output oil form an absorption process, which contains the absorbing oil and the component being absorpbed
FCC - (Fluid catalytic cracker) the most common conversion unit used in refining to upgrade heavier distillation cuts to light products
FCC gasoline - the primary product of the FCC unit. FCC gasoline has approximately the properties required for finished gasoline (octane and vapor pressure)
FCC gasoline hydrotreater - a refinery process unit used to reduce the sulfur content in the FCC gasoline stream produced in the FCC and RCC units
FCC slurry - a highly aromatic resid stream produced by the FCC
FEED - (Front-end engineering and design) the step in the project engineering process after conceptual design and before detailed engineering
Feedstock - any hydrocarbon input to a process
FID - (Final investment decision) the point in the capital project planning process when the decision to make major financial commitments is taken
Fischer-Tropsch - (FT) the most common process used to synthesize liquid fuels from on-oil sources (typically coal or natural gas)
Fixed bed - a catalyst bed that is held in place, as opposed to an ebulated bed or fluidized bed
Fixed costs - operating costs that do not vary with plant throughput
Fixed roof tank - a storage tank for crude oil or refined products where the roof of the tank does not rise and fall with the level of material in the tank
Flare - a means of safely burning off hydrocarbon in a refinery when there is an upset
Flash point - Flash point is an important product quality specification for distillate fuels (such as diesel, home heating oil, and jet fuel)
Flashing - Flashing is the use of a drop in pressure to cause part of a hydrocarbon mixture to vaporize and separate from heavier material, remains in the liquid state
Flat price - the absolute value of something, as opposed to a price spread, which is the difference to another price
Flexicoker - a variation on coker design in which pet coke is continuously withdrawn and gasified to produce fuel for the coker and the rest of the refinery
Floating roof tank - a storage tank for crude oil where the roof of the tank does not rises and falls with the level of material in the tank
Flottah (crude) - a medium, sweet crude grade produced in the UK
Flue gas - the exhaust gas from a furnace, boiler or engine
Fluid coker - a simplified version of a flexicoker in which coke is continuously drawn off, but only gasified to the extent necessary to fuel the coking process
Fluidized bed - a catalyst bed type in which the catalyst is free flowing in a mixture with the reacting hydrocarbons (as opposed to being in a fixed or ebulating bed)
FOB - (Free onboard) a common pricing basis for a commodity that is being shipped. FOB indicates that the price is for the commodity loaded onto a vessel and ready for shipping
Forcados (crude) - a medium, sweet crude grade produced in Nigeria
Formula price - a method of crude or product pricing in which a predetermined formula sets the price of the commodity relative to other benchmark crude or product prices, with little or no month to month input from the buyer or seller
Forties (crude) - a light, sweet crude grade produced in the UK
Forward contract - a contract between two parties for exchange of a volume of cargo at a specified future date for a specified price
Forward curve - the future prices over time for a commodity predicted by the market based on forward transactions
Fraction - the output streams from a distillation tower
Fractional distillation - the first step in the the refining process. The primary purpose of the atmospheric distillation tower is to separate crude oil into its components (or distillation cuts, distillation fractions) for further processing by other processing units
Fractionator - a "mini" distillation tower that uses fractional distillation to separate the components in a product stream from a conversion unit
Free on board - (FOB) a common pricing basis for a commodity that is being shipped. FOB indicates that the price is for the commodity loaded onto a vessel and ready for shipping
Fresh feed rate - the rate at which un-recycled feed is put into a process unit
Freeze point - quality specification for jet fuel representing the temperature at which components in the fuel start to solidify into wax crystals
Fuel oil - a broad term that could refer to a number of different products ranging in density from kerosene to Resid
Furfural - a broad term that could refer to a number of different products ranging in density from kerosene to Resid
Furnace oil - a diesel range light product used for non-transportation purposes
Futures - highly standardized, exchange traded forward contracts for crude and refined products