How oil is used

Once oil is extracted from the ground, it must be refined to remove impurities and water, and separate the crude oil into a range of useful oil products such as kerosene, petrol and lubricating oil.

These oil products are used for a wide variety of purposes including:

• fueling cars (petrol), trucks (diesel) and planes (aviation-gas)
• paving streets (asphalt)
• making clothes (nylon and other man-made fibres)
• lubricating machines (lubricating oils)
• making plastic toys, lunchboxes and picnic sets (oil-based plastics).

Source: Image courtesy of ABARE