Okuzeka
Oil, Gas & Mining vocabulary · Pipelines, Storage & LNG

Throughput

Meaning in oil, gas & mining, with examples

/ˈθruːpʊt/nounCommon term

In oil, gas & mining, throughput means: The amount of material that passes through a pipeline, plant or terminal in a given period, such as barrels per day or tonnes per hour.

In Turkish: işlenen miktar, iletilen miktar, akış hacmi

How it is used

Used for pipelines (pipeline throughput), refineries (crude throughput) and processing plants (mill throughput). Managers set throughput targets and look for bottlenecks. Throughput is the actual amount; capacity is the maximum possible.

Example sentences

  1. Mill throughput reached a record 1,500 tonnes per hour in May.

  2. Pipeline throughput fell when two fields went offline for maintenance.

Common collocations

  • daily throughput
  • crude throughput
  • mill throughput
  • increase throughput
  • pipelineA long line of connected pipes, often buried or laid on the seabed, used to carry oil, gas, water or slurry over long distances.
  • flow rateThe amount of oil, gas or water that flows from a well or through a pipe in a given time, such as barrels per day or cubic metres per hour.
  • refineryAn industrial plant where crude oil is heated, separated and chemically changed to make products such as gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, LPG and asphalt.
  • crusherA machine that breaks large rocks into smaller pieces. Crushing is the first step in ore processing, before grinding.
  • grindingThe stage after crushing in which ore is ground into a fine powder in rotating mills so that the valuable mineral grains are freed from the waste rock.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Pipelines, Storage & LNG

Practise with graded reading

Reading at the right level is the fastest way to make new words stick. Pick free English books by level: