Context
Early on in play, since say 0.14, I found the above layout worked best for me, and I've repeated something similar for all my new bases since.
You always need more space; my design principle was something like expandable, expansive, stackable, balanced. Each row of five oil refineries feeds off to seven light oil crackers, with most of the heavy oil going to lubricant, but a stop valve converting spare heavy oil into light oil. There's a small 1-5K circuit controlled buffer on each storage tank ensuring that no one resource ever quite empties, and there's a skim circuit that creates solid fuel blocks from either light or petroleum if the storage tanks are above 20K. As I hope you can see, I've stacked it vertically to account for my base expansion, with petroleum and sulphuric acid being pumped to train stations in the north, and then added beacons and modules late game to boost productivity.
Anyway, that's how I see oil processing being done... my way. It expands easy from the early game, with an early burn off option of solid fuel to provide power and smelting capabilities, without having to worry about getting plastic and circuits finished fast.
I hope this inspires some people to rethink how they do oil; or maybe this is the natural design that emerges. I don't know. Have fun! Comments welcome :)
Features
- Rail lines for crude oil input and solid fuel output - good for feeding early rail network
- Beaconised oil processing - once you eventually start churning out L3 modules
- Circuit balanced petroleum, lubricant, and solid fuel production - provided that petroleum is being drained
- Plastic and sulphuric acid production - sulphuric acid can be trained out to the north for feeding circuit factories and uranium fields
- Additional plastic factory not included - create additional train out from the north
- Expandable south in neat rows
Tips
The plastic plant will need feeding with coal, and the sulphuric acid plan will need feeding with iron plate from the west. After solid fuel was up and running, I quickly switched over my coal lines with solid fuel so that I could provide a dedicated coal plastic feed.
Nothing happens to the south, or the east; keep the south open for further expansion; pumping north. Do whatever you want in the east - stack the whole block a second time perhaps?