Do You Know What Else Crude Oil Makes?

You may think the price of oil has nowhere to go but up, and you would be right thinking this; however, have you ever stopped to think about the price of other products too? It seems like every time a visit to the grocery store or shopping center is warranted the prices of everything has continued to rise. These rising prices are not simply coincidences. They are linked because crude oil is not only present in the gasoline you buy to fuel your car, it is present in just about every other product in your house.

The next time you are out shopping, if you happen to buy a shirt or pair of pants that are stretchy they most likely contain processed crude oil products. The rubbers contained in artificial leather and other fabrics are produced using some form of oil. Even plastics like cooking utensils, auto and machine parts, insulation, tires, and many more all use oil at some stage in their production. The oil used comes in various processed forms with many different names but it is there.

Certain aspirins, antiseptics, and sulfa drugs contain crude oil products. Sulfa drugs, or sulfonamides, include antibacterial drugs, diuretics, and anti-convulsants. Not all medicines contain crude oil products and it is hard to distinguish which ones do and which ones do not because of the complex names of ingredients each medicine has listed.

Crude oil products can be found in certain solvents, astringents, cosmetics, and flavors. Again, chemical names included in ingredient lists make knowing which alcohol products contain oil/petroleum. Alcohols are not only important for consumption and beauty products, they are vastly important for sterilizing instruments and wounds in the medical field and they are key components in certain chemicals.

It is not very surprising that petroleum products are used in the manufacturing of asphalts. Asphalts include those used for paving, shingles, insulation, and paint. These products are crucial in the construction of houses and infrastructure, like roads. Asphalts are a key component in maintaining and defining the standard of living for first world countries like the United States.

Any kind of large machine you can think of, including transportation vehicles, need lubricates or grease in one form or another. Lubricants, greases, and oils are produced by some form of petroleum products. These types of essential oils would not exist if petroleum were not refined into different oil products and, therefore, transportation as we know it would not exist.

The fuel produced by petroleum is by far the most significant product oil has created. Petroleum burns more efficiently than wood and coal. It is the closest thing to pure energy that man has found, not including nuclear power that is not yet suitable for transportation and produces radioactive waste. Petroleum produces fuel for cars, trucks, boats, airplanes, and jets. In addition, oil products in the form of natural gas fuel the heating system for most houses in first world countries like the United States and Canada. Without these modes of transportation and forms of heating the modern technological world would cease to exist.

By-products of oil refining include fertilizers, ammonia, and sulfuric acid. Ammonia is a compound in most household cleaners and it is also found in fertilizers. Sulfuric acid is used to manufacture a wide range of chemicals from antifreeze to phosphoric acid and household drainage cleaners. These by-products are vastly important to people because of their many uses in the fields of household maintenance, agriculture, and transportation components.

Oil can also be a main ingredient in the production of some household items you may not have realized contain small amounts of oil. For example, oil is used in artificial sweeteners like saccharin and aspartame. Both saccharin and aspartame are used in food, candy, and drinks. Furthermore, saccharin is used to sweeten medicines and toothpaste. Oil products also produce some types of perfumes, dyes, and explosives. The production of these products may be more costly or impossible to make if it were not for the existence of oil.

Oil is not only in the gasoline in your car; it is in your clothes, food, household items, medicine, and practically everything else. It is extremely hard to find more organic forms of certain products, especially plastics. The next time you go shopping and start wondering why prices of almost everything continue to rise, do not simply blame the rising cost of transportation for the increased price of the products. Also consider that the rising cost of crude oil that gets processed and put in everyday household items. As oil production decreases in certain parts of the world, the production of these products will also surely decrease and cause an increase in prices. A plastic bowl that costs $5 now may cost triple that in coming decades.