The crucial and oldest way to power today's industry - Petroleum

Petroleum. In Latin, petra meant rock whilst oleum meant oil. Combined it is called rock oil also known as fossil fuel. It is pronounced as pe-tro-le-um. It is produced from the decaying of prehistoric plants and animal remains -- hence the name FOSSIL FUEL. It is liquid in nature and sometimes in gaseous form (natural gas) and yellowish black in colour. It is composed of hydrocarbons and organic compounds.

How is petroleum form?
As stated above, petroleum comes from the decaying of prehistoric plants and animal remains. The remains settle to the bottom of the sea, after layers and layers of piling up, trapping the organic material. As we know, for a remain to decay or rot, it requires oxygen. Being trapped under layers and layers of sand and rocks, it could not decay properly. After a long period, the increasing pressure and temperature slowly cook the remains into petroleum. The petroleum is held in a rock like a sponge holding in water.

How is petroleum found?
In the past, finding a source of petroleum would be the same as finding the light switch in a pitch black room multiple by a thousand and the cost to randomly drill would be extremely costly depending on the depth of the sea. However in today's modern society, we have science and technology to help us find the source instead of guessing, saving the cost and time to randomly find a source.

The distillation of petroleum.
Petroleum in its raw form has no used. It only has uses after being distillated. The fractional distillation is the process of separating the mixtures into compound parts by boiling them. As each of the compounds in petroleum have different boiling points and different uses. The products of the fractional distillation are petroleum gas, gasoline, kerosene, heating oil, lubricating oil and residues.

Why is petroleum such an important resource?
Basically speaking, almost everything is powered by petroleum, cars, heaters and etc. It is also used to generate income for a country, as not many countries have such a luxury resource or technology to find it.