Elements wont change states in inventories

Because in the inventory it can't change state, what you can do is using some petroleum, heat it and use some pipe to pass trough the crude oil to exchange heat, or you could try and use a petroleum boiler.
You can also visualize this "bug" feature with water above the 100° inside the refinery.
One last thing that you can try is emptying the storage and dump it using a bottle emptier it should change without breaking.

Changed Status to Closed

The intended behavior in the game is that elements never change state while in storage of any kind. 

It's kind of weird that it can't change from one liquid to another in the pipe though, I'll have to think about that. Thanks for the report!