crude oil

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crude oil (usually uncountable, plural crude oils)

1. Unrefined oil; as it is found underground, consisting mainly of hydrocarbons.
   • 1961 August, “New traffic flows in South Wales”, in Trains Illustrated, page 494:

     Further west, in Pembrokeshire, the Esso Petroleum Co. refinery at Milford Haven, opened last November, is designed to berth the world's largest tankers and to process, initially, 4,500,000 tons of crude oil a year.

• (Unrefined oil): crude, fossil oil, petroleum, rock oil

• syncrude

• Brent crude

• cloudier, coelurid