This invention concerns analysis by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) of crude oils and petroleum products. In one embodiment of the invention a sample is quantitatively separated into saturates, alkyl benzenes and polynuclear aromatics using a system comprising a column packed with a porous silica packing material having a polar amino-cyano bonded phase in tandem with a column packed with a tetranitrofluorenimino packing material, and a dielectric constant detector. In ...