This division includes the transformation of crude petroleum and coal into usable products. The dominant process is petroleum refining, which involves the separation of crude petroleum into component products through such techniques as cracking and distillation. This division also includes the manufacture for own account of characteristic products (e.g. coke, butane, propane, petrol, kerosene, fuel oil etc.) as well as processing services (e.g. custom refining).

This division includes the manufacture of gases such as ethane, propane and butane as products of petroleum refineries.

Not included is the manufacture of such gases in other units (2011), manufacture of industrial gases (2011), extraction of natural gas (methane, ethane, butane or propane) (0600), and manufacture of fuel gas, other than petroleum gases (e.g. coal gas, water gas, producer gas, gasworks gas) (35420).

The manufacture of petrochemicals from refined petroleum is classified in division 20.