Oil is an integral component of our lives. It has a significant contribution to our daily activities, including heating up our homes in winters as well as being used as the fuel source for transportation and in the manufacturing of plastics, clothes, and electronics. Thus, oil is an essential source for us to survive and live our lives with all the basic facilities. To simply put, oil is the source of energy to run our homes, heats the home, and is used in cooking food.
Oil is used as the major source of fuel for vehicles. It ensures the mobility of people as well as powering up people’s houses. Oil in its raw state can be converted into many different forms, such as gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel. Gasoline is used in the internal combustion of engines. As a result, the produced products are then used as fuel for private and public transport.
On the other hand, diesel is used by heavy-duty vehicles such as trucks, trains, and heavy machinery. In contrast to gasoline, diesel is stronger in nature and heavier in density. The latter two properties make it suitable to be used in operation larger machines. Besides, oil is also used as aviation fuel for powering up different pieces of machinery of the aircraft.
Oils such as crude oil are the main component of plastic. In the refineries, oil is heated and converted into feedstock. The feedstock is then used in petrochemical plants, where it is turned into plastic. The obtained plastic is then used for manufacturing different products, such as crockery, stationery, toys, etc. it is noteworthy to note that oil is used as a basic starting ingredient in almost 60,000 plastic-made products. For instance, dishwater soap, liquid soap, food preservatives, and optics. Some of the industries where oil is used directly in manufacturing products include:
Oil has rich insulating and healing properties; due to that, it is used in the electronics industry in the manufacturing of electronic gadgets like laptops, computers, and all sorts of electronic gadgets. For instance, television, smartphones, and your wristwatches all have oil in them as their basic component.
The clothes that we wear are all made up of clothing fibers made from petroleum. For instance, acrylic, nylon, polyester, rayon, and leather. All these fabrics have traces of oil in them in more or fewer amounts. In addition, the purses and shoes we wear are also made up of petroleum; therefore, they tend to be durable, lightweight, and exhibit hydrophobic properties.
Our daily grooming products like makeup, fragrances, hair dye, hand lotions, and sanitary products are all made from petroleum. Besides, the spectacles people wear or all the corrective lenses have been directly or indirectly made from oil.
Health care systems heavily rely on petroleum manufactured products—for instance, IV bags, prosthetic limbs, hearing aids, tablets, and heart valves.
Conclusively, oil plays an integral part in our lives; from cooking to transportation, oil is used in everything. Due to its widespread use, it is in high demand everywhere. Countries that are rich in oil reserves are looked at as golden sparrows. For instance, South African oil reserves are huge in demand in the exporting market, due to the latter reason, south African refined oils top the international oil-exporting market.