When they talk about oil, what is light sweet crude anyways, and why do they call it sweet?

Answer 1

Put simply a light crude contains a high proportion of gasoline distillates and relatively little heavy oils. A sweet crude is low in sulphur (the expression comes from the sour smell from SO2 when high sulphur crude is burnt.

Hope that helps

Answer 2

Rich and aromatic, this lightest of the crude oils is the most desirable because it requires less processing to turn into gasoline.

"Light" refers to the specific gravity of the oil. A light crude has a specific gravity of 34+.


"Sweet" refers to the sulfur content of the oil. A sweet crude has a low sulfur content.


In the past, refineries were set up to work with only one type of crude. One of the main reasons the U.S. was caught short by OPEC in the 1970's was simply because our refineries depended on imported light, sweet crudes. And at the time, the unlimited source was from OPEC countries. So when OPEC cut off the flow of oil, U.S. refiners had no real alternatives. Although there was heavy, high sulfur oil available from various other sources, our refineries could not process those crudes.

In the 1980's refineries were modified to allow the use of a wider range of crude oil, which opened up the market to many new producers. Now, refiners can accomodate the heavier crude oils, but when supply is plentiful, they will always prefer the light, sweet crude.

Answer 3

Light crude contains more of the lower boiling point fractions which have a lower density and thus produces the valuable products - gasoline, kerosene and diesel - more readily with less expensive refining. Sweet crude contains less sulphur which forms acid or sour gases in refinery process and extra expense in refining. Thus light sweet crude is the most valuable type.

Answer 4

Crude oil continuously comes with a particular volume of sulphur derivatives frequently hydrogen sulphide gasoline. whilst the crude incorporates extra advantageous quantities of sulphides it is pronounced as bitter crude. easy candy crude oil has much less sulphides content fabric and is many times of much less density / API than the heavy crudes. Density / API is the honour whilst determining notwithstanding if it is easy or heavy and not the wax content fabric. Sulphides content fabric makes a decision notwithstanding if it is bitter or candy.

Answer 5

Its like having cash, gold or oil. There all sweet.

Answer 6

less sulfur ( sweet is just slang )

Answer 7

Goes good on pancakes...